<p>
[quote]
Admit it, you just don't want your taxes going to fund social services. But you have no problem with your tax dollars going to bomb the **** out of foreign countries. </p>
<p>If you would just admit those two simple things, we could at least respect you for your honesty, if nothing else.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not entirely sure why you need me to explicitly spell that out for you, but sure why not. I don't want my tax dollars going to fund UHC - that isn't a "social service"; it would be a social curse. I also have a problem with the way most other "social services", as you call them, are administered. I don't want to pay for lazy people to sit on their @$$es living off welfare and food stamps because they get more from that than they would a minimum wage job. If people dont' want to contribute to society, then they're on their own and I don't want to pay for them.
And no, i have no problem with my tax dollars going to "bomb the ****" out of people who need it, just like I have no problem paying for police to chase after criminals. There are a lot of bad people in this world, and the simple fact is that they need a good @$$-whooping, not "rehabilitation and counseling". But that is neither here nor there and is way off topic.</p>
<p>For the record, I dont' care if you respect me. Go ahead and keep on hating.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but I'm sure most of us have our own examples of the waiting that our own insurance companies make us do.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>haha nope - I just make appointments and go to whatever doctor I want - no waiting needed. If the doctor says I need a procedure, the insurance company pays up. I've never had to wait due to my insurance company.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First, how exactly does universal health care limit a choice of doctors?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Because the plan itself will simply assign you to a doctor and thats the one you go to. It is similar to an HMO in many respects. You are assigned a primary care physician, and beyond that you have little or no choice about other doctors you see.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But even if it did, so? Most doctors are qualified for their positions, it's not like you are getting jipped by "having" to go to certain ones(even though once again, some logic is missing from this).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Thats not the point, and yes, a lot of logic is missing there. I've been to plenty of terrible doctors, and the thought of being required to go to one of those is ridiculous.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The real thing is that people just don't like having "choice" taken away from them, even when the choice means absolutely nothing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Bingo! And its not true that the choice is meaningless. In fact, choice is everything! Again, what if you couldn't chose not to go to a doctor who has given you crappy service? And what would be the incentive for doctors to give good service, if they know the government program will just send them more patients? Again, the great part about capitalism is that poor service is not rewarded with more business.</p>
<p>Also, the whole "slippery slope" argument comes to mind. If choice in health care doesn't matter, then why does choice in anything else matter? Lets let the government make all decisions for us. It seems to me thats what most people today want anyway. They want a "cradle to grave" nanny state that takes care of them, liberty and freedom be damned.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Regarding the second article, it's anecdotal unless you have specifically research the UK NHS formulary in order to determine exactly which drugs are approved for those conditions
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But see, NHS shouldn't even be in the picture here. The DOCTOR should be making the decisions regarding the treatment of their patients, not the government. Patient care suffers when doctors can only prescribe set treatments. Thats just not how medicine works, and why medical professionals don't support this type of plan.</p>
<p>This really is a stupid discussion. If you want to discuss UHS, throw out a SPECIFIC implementation of UHS, otherwise, this will go in circles. Some of the arguments against UHS apply only to certain implementations of UHS, and supporters can just avoid every single con for it by shifting advocacies every other post. I can just imagine somebody telling Icarus, "No, UHS does not have to assign doctors. We can just have the government allow people to choose whatever doctor they want and the government can just pay for it." </p>
<p>That's just one example of a scenario where people can avoid responding to UHS disadvantages. Give us more details, then we can discuss.</p>
<p>And I don't understand why people incessantly use polls to determine the soundness of an opinion. First, do you even know how polls work? Can you give us a source for these polls and describe to us how the polls were conducted? Is this method of polling reliable? Yes, that's a damn junkload of work, but that's your burden of proof for using polls. Second of all, who cares if a majority of people believe something is right? What does popular opinion prove about the soundness or practicality of an argument? The majority of people in Nazi Germany believed Jews were responsible for economic downturn and ought to be burned at the stake. Last I heard, the US in the 18th century believed that African Americans were substandard and deserved to be enslaved. Were these sound, practical arguments? NO. Stop citing polls. Nobody cares. Tell us WHY you think your opinion is best, not that other people agree.</p>
<p>By the way, using "War In Iraq" as some sort of response to people complaining about tax hikes for UHS is the dumbest thing I've ever read. When was it mandated that we needed to support one or the other? Goodness....</p>
<p>Damn straight. You may find choice of doctors meaningless, but it's not your right to try to be enforcing that opinion on somebody else. You may feel it's important to share some of our wealth to help those who don't have wealth. That's not something you need to FORCE everyone else to do.</p>
<p>And since healthcare is a right, then hell, while we're at it, let's make education a right. Oops, we did. Alright, let's make clothing and shelter a "right." Now how are people going to get from school to home to the doctor's office? Let's make cars a right too! When does this end? Who pays for it? Where is the dichotomy between what people "need" and what people don't "need"?</p>
<p>You'll say, "Duh, healthcare is a basic necessity. Healthcare = life. ZING!" But what's healthcare going to do if you can't even get the education you need to make a living to support your life? So make education a right. But what's education if you can't even get to school? Make transportation a right then. Why don't we just hand out cash to every single person we come in contact with, hold hands and sing "Kum ba ya"?</p>
<p>I hate it when liberals don't actually think about what they're doing.</p>
<p>By the way, whoever said they wanted to "combat poverty," research Lyndon Johnson's "War On Poverty" and how horribly it failed. And look at it's pricetag. No wonder we didn't hear about it in school. (Don't bother constrasting 1966 statistics with 2007 statistics until you can provide an EXCLUSIVE CORRELATION between welfare and decreasing poverty and eliminate confounding factors such as increase of jobs, expansion of industry, etc.) With all the welfare that is already in America (food stamps, free public school, PROGRESSIVE TAXING (check out income tax rates for different income brackets HELLO?), etc.), there's little reason to be stuck in poverty in the first place.</p>
<p>First, national health programs don't assign you a primary care physician. At least not any national health program that I know of. You're allowed to choose your pcp. And you're right, some doctor's aren't on the list. In a truly national plan, the vast majority of doctors ARE on the approved pcp list (if you ignore the one's that aren't pcps and are instead specialists). To give an example, in a 15,000 person town in Norway, every doctor there (again, excluding specialists) was approved by the nhs. Furthermore, patients could switch who their primary care doctor was twice every year if they wanted to (although, of course, most people wanted to stay with their doctor). I'm not sure how their options were at all limited. You're right. If you've hated two doctors this year already, you have to go through an appeals process to change again. I don't particularly know what my insurance company's policy for changing my pcp is, but I suspect that it takes a couple of months at least, and I KNOW that if I go to a new pcp without having it cleared with them, they wont pay. The same holds for national health systems. If you go to a doctor they don't approve, they don't pay. That doesn't mean that you don't have the option to go anyway and pay privately (in most countries--some aren't set up for private doctors anyway, in which case every doctor is on their approved lists).</p>
<p>
[quote]
haha nope - I just make appointments and go to whatever doctor I want - no waiting needed. If the doctor says I need a procedure, the insurance company pays up. I've never had to wait due to my insurance company.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
But see, NHS shouldn't even be in the picture here. The DOCTOR should be making the decisions regarding the treatment of their patients, not the government. Patient care suffers when doctors can only prescribe set treatments. Thats just not how medicine works, and why medical professionals don't support this type of plan.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Maybe you have the best private health insurance policy on the planet, in which case I understand why you're against national health. You already have all options open to you. My insurance company, however, has a drug formulary (like, I should say, every insurance company I've ever HEARD of), and my doctor must take into account what's on it when he's prescribing me or my family members medication, or else it won't be paid for. Again, I have the option of paying for it myself, but so did these people. Again, the most common reason for a medication not being on a national health insurance plan's policy is that it either hasn't been tested thoroughly enough to meet that policies guidelines (I should make it clear that I think this is a GOOD thing and that I think that the US is too quick to approve drugs as the number of recalls of relatively new drugs in recent years probably shows) or because an older drug has been shown to work better. Again, there's no guarantee that any of our insurances would've paid for any of these medications.</p>
<p>I stand by one of my earlier points: if health care isn't a right, why are police and fire protection?
</p>
<p>Who said I had to support the status quo? And since you seem to be more interested in simply "standing" by your points instead of defending them, I'll "stand" by one of my points: Let's make everything a right then- why stop at health care? We'll make you pay for it, since you seem to be so generous and full of $$$$.</p>
<p>Health care is not a "right". I see how much you just love using that term and then the sad "slippery slope" argument that goes with it. Instead of saying health care is a right, how about a country that is supposed to be so great should have all of it's citizens covered because it should be able to being so damn great. If countries like Canada, England, Ireland,Spain,Germany,Australia,Russia,Italy,Japan and even "lesser" countries like Brazil, Ukraine,Costa Rica, Cuba,Chile,Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and MORE have atleast some form of universal health care why can't the mighty USA do it? That's the real question at hand. You're argument is just sad because in all of these countries things like cars have not become rights just like in Canada people have not started marrying animals just because gay marriage is allowed. Use a real argument, not hypothetical garbage that is easily seen as not true by almost every major country in the world.</p>
<p>The slippery slope argument is not an argument that indicates inevitability and never has been- it is a question of WHY you think HC should be a right. If you say HC is a right, then why don't we also call a thousand other things "rights?" Why is healthcare more special than other things like education or food? No one is saying that if a country offers free HC then eventually a country will offer everything. That's not the point. If you don't understand something, don't just call it "garbage." You only serve to highlight your ignorance.
Uh, what? Talk about stupid arguments. "Gee, countries should offer UHC if they want to be great." What the hell kind of an argument is that? There's not a single justification you offer for that opinion. Why should the US offer UHC? Why does a country being good = a country that offers UHC? Or better yet, why does a country being good to its people = stealing from certain citizens to help pay for other citizens that don't have to contribute? How about actually giving us some real substance instead of pushing some baseless assertion? At least the other people on this thread are actually attempting to add substance to this discussion. What's also sad is that you can't even distinguish between the words "you're" and "your."</p>
<p>"Instead of saying health care is a right, how about a country that is supposed to be so great should have all of it's citizens covered because it should be able to being so damn great."</p>
<p>Wow....are these the kinds of people who get to vote for the first time in 2008? Who possessed these morons?</p>
<p>Lol. Would you like that public schools, police and fire departments be abolished? That's how you are making it seem. Are they rights? I would say they are not rights at all, but rather things that a wealthy, great country can provide. The same goes with healthcare. I said health care is not a right. Maybe you need to re-read before you attack. I understood what you did, and even agree with you that it's not a right, but I disagree with the hypothetical what if. Perhaps one day people will feel that cars are their right, I don't know, but perhaps one day we will make the decision that every single thing will be privatized. Playing the slipperly slope what if arguments show nothing.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure the justification of universal health care is to provide health care for all citizens. The justification is the saving of uneeded deaths in the name of money, I didn't think that was hard to figure out. We have been over a hundred times why the US should and should not offer US health care, I don't think it needs to be repeated every five seconds because you decided to join the thread. My post wasn't intended to tell why universal health care is good, but rather to point out that the US is one of the only major countries that does not have universal health care. A country being good does not equal a universal health care system, but it should stand out to you that every other powerful country in the world has atleast some sort of universal health care. I'm sorry you can't figure these things out and instead look for minor grammar mistakes.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that the sick in this country can't get health insurance and therefore can't afford health care. I think it's a fair statement that the sick are the people who most need access to doctors and medicine. And because I know that the next statement will be that people should've gotten insurance before they got sick, keep in mind that even if you have insurance through work, if you get too sick to work, after 18 months of incredibly expensive COBRA coverage, you will be without insurance. Then people will say that if you're too sick to work, there's disability coverage. Disability takes approximately 2.5 years to get on and then more time after that to begin receiving Medicaid coverage. Leaving you to pay for at least a year of possibly very expensive medications or treatments. Practically no one could afford the cost of a years amount of chemotherapy without insurance. And a lot of companies are being forced to quit offering insurance coverage because the insurance companies charge so much that they can't afford them. Anyone on a policy who has any sort of medical problem bumps the cost of the entire companies policy up to an almost un-affordable level. Surely the answer isn't to tell companies that they can only hire people who aren't sick or who will never get sick? </p>
<p>Buying private insurance is a fine idea, except that buying a good policy is expensive. Most of the insurance you see advertised on TV (for ~100 a month) can drop you one year after you develop a serious condition (and the insurance companies tend to consider almost everything a serious condition). The only policy that my state mandates be available and not be able to drop you after a year costs $42,000 each year to cover one person.</p>
<p>Then I look at things like the VA, which operates with less overhead than any insurance company or hospital in the country, and which medical experts usually say offers the best care in the country, and I see that on a small scale, a national health program is working in the United States, and I don't understand why people don't think it could work on a large scale.</p>
<p>The excuse of having all the extra cost is well and good too, but I believe that I've already told my belief that the vast majority of people would end up paying less money in taxes than they currently are for their health care. The insurance companies aren't out to help anyone with their tremendously high costs. Their motive, like the motive of almost any private corporation is profit. I don't see why we need to give insurance CEOs a salary of over $100 million a year rather than making sure that people who are sick can afford to go to the doctor.</p>
<p>I was explaining what the slippery slope argument was about because you apparently don't get it and keep misrepresenting it in your responses. The slippery slope argument is directed at people who say HC is a right because the slippery slope argument questions the existence of a dichotomy between what is a right and what isn't a right. If you don't think HC is a right, then the slippery slope argument is none of your concern. Get it yet?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, for the 1000th time, slippery slope does not imply that we will suddenly offer a thousand things to everyone. Slippery slope attacks the notion that HC is a right because if you make HC a right you ought to be (not will be) making a lot of other things rights. Again, I say this in conjecture. If you don't think HC is a right, then this argument does not apply to you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So your justification is a utilitarian one? Why don't we just kill 2 innocent people to take their organs to save 10 patients who need them? It's just two lives for crying out loud. 10>2</p>
<p>Someone else's money is not your jurisdiction. You have no right or justification whatsoever to trample on someone's property and autonomy to take their belongings and do with which whatever you please. Can I run into your house right now, steal your mother's jewelry, sell it, and donate the proceeds to a fund that helps victims of Hurricane Katrina? The donating part is noble, the stealing part isn't.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The following quote seems to indicate otherwise:
</p>
<p>The use of "should" implies that you are asserting that UHC is great and it ought to be implemented. If that wasn't what you meant, then next time, choose your words more carefully.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OK, you're right. The US does stand out. The US model is exceptionally great for not trampling on people's rights. </p>
<p>
<p>By the way, I only point out grammar mistakes to discredit and embarrass people who respond with a arrogant, snobbish tone.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=HueyFreeman]
I see how much you just love using that term and then the sad "slippery slope" argument that goes with it.....You're argument is just sad..Use a real argument, not hypothetical garbage
</p>
<p>That kind of irreverence is amazing because:
1. You still don't understand the application of the slippery slope argument. It is a question of PHILOSOPHY not INEVITABILITY.
2. You can't even figure out the difference between "you're" and "your."
Consequently, you do not deserve to be posting in a self-righteous manner. That is why I pointed out grammar mistakes.</p>
<p>I'm still afraid you will claim "but slippery slope will never happen :( :( :(" so I'll explain it one last time. Slippery slope questions the definition of "rights." It doesn't imply that slippery slope will happen, just that if someone thinks HC is a right, then a thousand other things ought to be rights (we strive for consistency, no?).</p>
<p>Since I said from the start that I don't think health care is a right, I don't know why you went off on the whole slippery slope argument to begin with regarding me. You quoted me, responded to me, and used that. It's clear you just wanted to use your argument without even seeing that we are on the same page with that idea(the fact that you just kept quoting me and making it like you said to me "oh well this doesn't apply to you" before I responded proves that you just want to appear dominant and is just childish, not to mention the quoting of my one word mistake AGAIN). </p>
<p>People make it like the US just could not implement a universal health care and I was simply saying that a country so powerful should be able to implement one since pretty much every other powerful country has. </p>
<p>I understand your point about people's money not being "my" jurisdiction, but I still want to know if you think that public schools, fire department, police department, and the postal service should be shut down because the public pays for them? Do you believe that taxes should be eliminated completely? If so, ok that's your opinion, but if not, you are a hypocrite. </p>
<p>Lastly, for the slippery slope argument, I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS A PHILOSOPHY AND NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TOMMOROW. My problem with that is the fact that you are completely guessing and then making it look like it WILL happen. You are right, maybe people will start demanding more and more things as "rights", but then again maybe the US will thrive under universal health care. That's the problem with that whole argument, it proves nothing and can be completely speculated in either way. That's my problem with the argument in any situation. It goes both ways, something you neglected in your posts.</p>
<p>Both in theory AND in actual practice, government-controlled ANYTHING doesn't work. You know why Communism and Socialism are bad economic philosophies. The same idea applies here. Why do you think things like public schools can go awry? Public schools always use funding as a scapegoat, when each public school student costs more money than a private school student, yet private schools often perform better in testing and in overall academics. Ever wonder why?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Evidence? Not to mention, when we opponents of UHC talk about extra cost, we are not complaining about extra cost just because we just want to buy the next iPod. We complain about extra cost because something Socialist like UHC will forcibly take our property without our permission and use it for means that we may not consent to. I'm not trying to perpetuate heartlessness. I know many people out there are suffering. But if we want to help the suffering, we need to donate to charities or exert labor for the United Way, not have our hard-earned money taken from us without our say in it whatsoever. Maybe some are OK with it. Maybe some are not. For those who are not, they may have their personal reasons and it is none of your concern to try to siphon some of their earnings because you personally think the cost is worth it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which is good because if CIGNA healthcare sucks too much, I might just switch to Kaiser Permanente. So CIGNA better do a damn good job. With UHS? I have government healthcare. What's my alternative? Government healthcare. </p>
<p>You might say we can still have alternatives even with UHS in place. Why does it matter if I still have to pay for UHS anyway?</p>
<p>Then there was a real unfortunate misunderstanding because when I first went on and on about HC not being a right with the slippery slope point, I was specifically quoting and responding to ginnyvere, not you. Then you came in with the response about slippery slope being stupid and "hypothetical garbage," so I felt it needed to be explained to you (and still do). I'm not rewriting history, you can reread the thread.</p>
<p>
<p>I didn't gather that from what you said, but that's fine. The US is indeed capable of offering UHC.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=HueyFreeman]
I understand your point about people's money not being "my" jurisdiction, but I still want to know if you think that public schools, fire department, police department, and the postal service should be shut down because the public pays for them? Do you believe that taxes should be eliminated completely? If so, ok that's your opinion, but if not, you are a hypocrite.
</p>
<p>Look, I'm not pushing anarchy, so obviously we can't abolish ALL taxes or things that ONLY governments can do like have National Guards or keep people from killing or gang raping each other. But things like post office (which aren't even funded by taxes, last I remember, I had to PAY to ship things at the post office) and public schools do not need to be centralized and privatization can increase the efficiency of both.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, you still don't get it. I never said people will start demanding more things and bring some sort of Armaggedon to the status quo as we know it. Never. I said (to people who think HC is a right) why do you think HC, among many other things we can easily deem "necessary" or "good" for life, a right? What these rhetorical questions prove is a flaw in their definition of rights. If you think something like HC should be a right, then many other things should be a right, and you should support the offering all of them. But most of us realize how unreasonable that is, and will finally understand how stupid is the idea that HC is a right. Thus, the point is that, because you, reasonably, don't think things like cars, houses, food, and condoms should be a right, neither should HC. That's all! It was that simple!</p>
<p>"My problem with that is the fact that you are completely guessing and then making it look like it WILL happen." - NEVER SAID OR IMPLIED THAT</p>
<p>NEVER!!</p>
<p>Honestly, this shouldn't have been called a "slippery-slope" argument in the first place. I think my point got lumped in with Icarus' and it turned into some inevitability argument, but mine isn't. I'm just trying to show people who think HC is a right that if their definition of rights includes HC, then their definition will necessarily include many, many other services too.</p>
<p>Regarding the VA, <a href="http://www.hms.harvard.edu/news/pressreleases/vab/0107top_grades.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.hms.harvard.edu/news/pressreleases/vab/0107top_grades.html</a> is an abstract of a study from Harvard from this January, concluding that "federal hospitals, including those run by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), provide the best care available anywhere for some of the most common life-threatening illnesses." This abstract indicates that the study looked at pneumonia, heart attacks, and congestive heart failure. I will admit that I haven't read the entire article from the Archives of Internal Medicine.</p>
<p>I can't currently find my link to the overhead costs of the VA, though I believe that it is 4%. The following link, <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php?page=all%5B/url%5D">http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php?page=all</a>, says that Medicare overhead is 3% compared to 15% to 25% at most HMOs, if that makes any difference. My copy of the article regarding the VA overhead is, I think, on a CD that is in the trunk of my car ready to go back to school. Give me a couple of days and I'll see if I can find it. Again, I believe that the number is 4%.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Evidence?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I've already linked to this once, but <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19886686/site/newsweek/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19886686/site/newsweek/</a>. This article states "John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health-care consultant, says that the health insurers' overhead came to $120 billion last year, of which $40 billion was profit. By comparison, it would cost $54 billion to cover all the uninsured." Lets assume that the overhead costs (minus the profit) would be the same in a national health system, and I think this is a conservative assumption, but I'm making it based on the fact that even though there will be an additional, approximately 40 million people insured, the overhead of the nationally-controlled systems seems to be much lower and with one, centralized system, much repetition will be eliminated, and lets take out the entire profit (because a nationalized system would not need to be profit generating). If that $40 billion that was profit for the insurance companies was used for a national health system, we could insure everyone in America for an additional $14 billion. Using the number 302,700,373 for the population (as of tonight when I checked on <a href="http://www.census.gov%5B/url%5D">www.census.gov</a>), that's an extra $46.25 per person per year. With my copay, that's two trips to the doctor, and that's assuming that I don't need any prescriptions during the year. While I might not spend that much in one specific year, over the course of my lifetime, my yearly average has been much, much higher than this. This example is not meant to say that it would be this simple, but is instead meant to demonstrate how we're already spending what is essentially equal to the amount that it would cost to have a comprehensive, single-payer system. It's not that I think the cost is worth it, it's that I think that the cost is actually less than we're collectively paying now.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Which is good because if CIGNA healthcare sucks too much, I might just switch to Kaiser Permanente. So CIGNA better do a damn good job.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm glad that you have the finances to switch, but I suspect that you only think that you do. If your employer (or more likely your parent's employer since most of us are college students) only offers one policy, that's who you're stuck with if you want a policy that can't cancel you on the years anniversary after you got sick unless you can afford to pay a fortune. I can't afford to pay $42,000 (note that this number comes from a conversation with a representative of the company, and I cannot document it) a year for my health care, but if I don't get a job with health care benefits after I graduate, that is my choice unless I want to either go bare or get a policy that will drop me if I actually get sick. I suspect that I'll go bare (with, most likely, an accident policy to cover me if I get into a car wreck or walk under a falling piano).</p>
<p>And, you're right, CIGNA does need to do a damn good job. The unfortunate part is that they know they have most people stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if they're sick. Remember that pre-existing conditions aren't covered for a year after switching to a new insurance policy. So if you're waiting for CIGNA to disappoint you, when they do, it'll be too late for you to get another company to cover whatever it was that CIGNA wouldn't unless you want to wait a year for them to cover ANY pre-existing condition. So if you're leaving because they you can't get them to return a phone call or pay a bill on time, you'd better make sure that you haven't been diagnosed with any chronic disease that requires continuing treatment or you'll have to shoulder the cost out of pocket for a year.</p>
<p>What it really comes down to is that I don't trust the insurance companies to deliver reliable health coverage. It's obvious that you don't trust the government to do it. We'll probably never see eye to eye. It doesn't matter anyway because what all the democratic candidates except Kucinich are suggesting (to bring this thread marginally back on topic) is to force the government to force the insurance companies to insure everyone. Even I see that that's the worst of both worlds. Then all you have is the insurance companies gouging everyone even more because they can and because everyone is required by the government (or heavily encouraged) to buy health insurance, and the government not putting any price controls on the insurance companies or requiring them to do anything remotely helpful.</p>
<p>I can't currently find my link to the overhead costs of the VA, though I believe that it is 4%. The following link, <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php?page=all%5B/url%5D">http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php?page=all</a>, says that Medicare overhead is 3% compared to 15% to 25% at most HMOs, if that makes any difference. My copy of the article regarding the VA overhead is, I think, on a CD that is in the trunk of my car ready to go back to school. Give me a couple of days and I'll see if I can find it. Again, I believe that the number is 4%.
</p>
<p>It’s tough to put the Harvard study into perspective because the abstract doesn’t provide details on how the study was done, but a more recent article from McClatchy Newspapers (the third largest newspaper company in the United States) explains how VA has oversold its medical care:</p>
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[QUOTE]
* The agency has touted how quickly veterans get in for appointments, but its own inspector general found that scheduling records have been manipulated repeatedly.
* The VA boasted that its customer service ratings are 10 points higher than those of private-sector hospitals, but the survey it cited shows a far smaller gap.
* Officials repeatedly have said that a pivotal health-quality study ranked the agency's health care "higher than any other health-care system in this country." However, the study they cited wasn't designed to do that.
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<p>The three points from above have been elaborated on in this article: <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/150/story/573018.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.newsobserver.com/150/story/573018.html</a>. Unfortunately, at this point, I can’t tell how this has affected the Harvard study, if at all, because we don’t know exactly how the Harvard study was done. However, as reputable an institution Harvard University is, I can’t exactly fathom its access to VA hospitals is more comprehensive than that of the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. Moreover, misrepresentation on the part of the agency implies that there was a reason to misrepresent. If the picture for VA hospitals is rosy in actuality, where is the motive for misrepresentation then?</p>
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The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute annually publishes "Waiting Your Turn." Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person's referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks).
As reported in the June 28 National Center for Policy Analysis' "Daily Policy Digest," Britain's Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients waits more than a year for surgery. France's failed health care system resulted in the deaths of 13,000 people, mostly of dehydration, during the heat spell of 2003. Hospitals stopped answering the phones, and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.
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<p>For the one and already controversial “good” example that is Veterans Affairs, there are multiple examples of actual, large-scale national health care programs that are horribly inefficient. Veterans Affairs, admittedly, is just a small-scale rollout that has yet to prove it is a true microcosm of how UHC would work for all Americans.</p>
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<p>It seems that John Sheils looked at profit margins in earnings reports of healthcare companies and subtracted them from overall revenue, spitting out the number of $80 billion as the actual cost to the healthcare companies to have their customers treated. Then, Mr. Sheils used mathematical proportions to surmise that, hypothetically, the uninsured can be “insured” for $54 billion. My point: This computation of $54 billion to cover all the uninsured is highly improbable:</p>
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<li><p>The problem is that insurance always has to be pulled in at an rate higher than what it will cost to treat the patients. You can’t predict with mathematical proportions what all the uninsured’s medical bills will ring up. It’s not as if the government can somehow scan you on January 1st to predict how many medical issues you’ll have and then bleep out a 2007 cost for you. They’ll always pull in a safe amount that ensures all patients’ treatments will be taken care of, from the best- to worst-case scenario. Therefore, at best, there’d still be profit margins if the government were to insure everybody, albeit less. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s fair to say that in the status quo, the uninsured as a whole have worse health than those who are insured because the insured have been cared for longer. Thus, if you suddenly insure all the uninsured today, the treatment costs will run much higher per person than the treatment costs of those who have been insured from the get-go. $54 billion, by contrast, is the conservative estimate because you are assuming that each formerly-uninsured person will have the same medical bill as each long-time-insured person. Because the $54 billion assertion is unlikely accurate, it will cost much more for those of us who already can afford insurance to cover those who cannot, increasing the amount the government will have to siphon from the "haves" to give to the "have-nots."</p></li>
<li><p>If people are guaranteed healthcare no matter what they pay for it, then people will be enticed and be more likely to take advantage of doctor’s visits when they are wholly unnecessary. There will be increased checkups or procedures that will also produce more costs than John Sheil’s estimate by today’s standards.</p></li>
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<p>You would be right in your seemingly benign additional cost for each person to pay if:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Babies, kids, and teens pay taxes.</p></li>
<li><p>Those who can’t afford health insurance, including but not limited to the unemployed or homeless, are even in a high-enough income tax bracket to pay taxes.</p></li>
<li><p>Everybody would pay the same exact amount for UHC. This is antithetical to the idea of UHC because then those who couldn’t afford it would pay. That means, then, that the tax base for UHC will likely be gathered on a progressive-taxing system and many people will pay way more than just $46.25 a year, which I must repeat is already obscenely inaccurate.</p></li>
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<p>And, you're right, CIGNA does need to do a damn good job. The unfortunate part is that they know they have most people stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if they're sick. Remember that pre-existing conditions aren't covered for a year after switching to a new insurance policy. So if you're waiting for CIGNA to disappoint you, when they do, it'll be too late for you to get another company to cover whatever it was that CIGNA wouldn't unless you want to wait a year for them to cover ANY pre-existing condition. So if you're leaving because they you can't get them to return a phone call or pay a bill on time, you'd better make sure that you haven't been diagnosed with any chronic disease that requires continuing treatment or you'll have to shoulder the cost out of pocket for a year.
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<p>Although I brought up the example of switching, the idea really is to do the research before choosing. Insurance companies will compete to offer the best coverage (or more affordable, whatever floats the customers’ boats). The government? No such competition, no such incentive to do well at all. If that doesn’t convince you, look at the public education system. How well has that gone?</p>
<p>By the way, when I bring up CIGNA and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, I’m actually bringing up a personal anecdote. My family literally switched from CIGNA to KFHP 7 years ago.</p>
<p>I’d also like to point out that you still haven’t answered the moral questions behind UHC or taken into account other examples of government-institution failures such as public education or the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At the point where there is inconsistency in the quality of government institutions (not to mention, with the quality of VA under scrutiny that you have relied so heavily upon) there is hardly reason to trust the government with nationalized health care.</p>