Universal healthcare

[hops_scout]

<p>

actually if people paid more taxes and actually received benefits like free daycare, free education all the way through college, universal healthcare, etc. they’d be much better off in the long run.

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<p>Or if they managed their money themselves better, they could probably afford many of the same things on their own! Why should somebody else be paying for your college education? Go to the public school system and you’ll save some money right there!</p>

[Sheed30]

<p><a href=“Political positions of Ron Paul - Wikipedia”>Political positions of Ron Paul - Wikipedia;

[UnleashedFury]

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<a href=“Politics - Wikipedia…#Health_policy%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D”>Politics - Wikipedia…#Health_policy

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Most reasonable position I’ve seen.</p>

[Nova10]

<p>What they don’t tell you about the U.S. infant mortality rate, is that the U.S. is more aggressive in treating severely premature infants. In those other countries, they are more willing to not treat the severely premature, and declare them stillborn. Also, the U.S. has more high risk people.
Universal Health care means rationed health care. The most expensive health care time of one’s life is the last six months of life. In those six months, you’ll use up about 70-80% of your lifetime health care expenses.
In ten years, Medicare/Medicaid will go bankrupt. The same is going to happen in the European countries, and it will be worst there because of demographics.</p>

[phantasmagoric]

<p>It’d be nice if my family and I could have proper dental care, or any dental care at all, but we currently can’t because the best “insurance” we have is Medi-Cal, and no dentist in town takes it. The closest city is a drive away and we don’t have the means to go.</p>

<p>It’d be nice if my sister had had proper pregnancy counseling, but she didn’t and is now 19 years old, 5 months pregnant, and her life is in danger because of it.</p>

<p>It’d be nice if my mother could get more corrective surgery on her eyes; she had cataracts, which were removed, but one eye is currently blind and the doctor is no longer taking our “insurance.”</p>

<p>It’d be nice if I had had an immediate check-up when I was showing signs of cancer. Instead I had to wait a few months, deferred from doctor to doctor who would take our “insurance.”</p>

<p>It’d be nice if my older brother hadn’t died from leukemia and a blood infection that came about because he didn’t want to go to the hospital for fear of incurring more debt.</p>

<p>It’d be nice if we weren’t left with over a million dollars in debt, just fighting his cancer for three years.</p>

<p>Seriously, if you don’t know what any of this is like, please don’t argue so vehemently against universal health care, as you don’t seem to know what it’s like. Many of these aren’t life-threatening, but just health care cases that would simply improve the quality of life.</p>

[k_amp_s]

<p>

If the government would help protect doctors against frivolous malpractice suits, the cost of healthcare wouldn’t be nearly as high. I’ve had two relatives move out of my state because they could no longer afford the insurance for OBGYNs. </p>

<p>There needs to be some type of subsidy system; you can’t have kids without health care. It’s not like they chose their parents. So basically I’m right in the middle of where the Republicans and the Democrats are, some government assistance, but not control.

</p>

<p>While I’m no fan of unscrupulous personal injury lawyers (as well as people who seek them out), thinking that frivolous malpractice claims is the main cause of the high cost of healthcare is a common misconception.</p>

<p>The total amount of pay-outs for ALL malpractice claims and payments for malpractice insurance premiums constitutes less than 2% of the total amount spent on healthcare in the US.</p>

<p>Otoh, ONE-THIRD of the amount spend on healthcare in this country is spent/wasted on transactional costs/paperwork. Pharmaceuticals are also increasingly taking a bigger chunk of the healthcare dollars – now over 10% of the total (the fact that the Medicare can’t negotiate w/ the drug companies is a complete joke).</p>

<p>Granted, additional measures should be taken to prevent more frivolous lawsuits, but all in all – it would have a negligible impact on healthcare costs (putting caps on pay-outs isn’t the answer and only hurts people w/ legitimate lawsuits since most frivolous suits are settled for sums way below the caps).</p>

<p>During a 5 year period around the turn of the century, the total amount paid out for malpractice suits stayed about the **same<a href=“and%20even%20dropping%20in%20one%20year”>/b</a>. However, during the same period, malpractice premiums for physicians saw a huge jump. This jump had everything to do w/ insurance companies needing to make-up for their losses in the dot.com crash rather than any increase in pay-outs for malpractice lawsuits.</p>

<p>As for OB-GYNs – they are a special case. While there are legitimate lawsuits (physician licensing boards also need to do a better job policing inept doctors), people tend to have unrealistic expectations that every pregnancy/childbirth is perfect. </p>

<p>

IF we were to begin a universal healthcare plan, where would the funding come from? Isn’t that the biggest question? Forget about the benefits; we have to think about the cost before we weigh the options. Is taxes going to go up? If they are, can our nation really afford something like that when our economy is slowing down?

</p>

<p>We already have “universal healthcare” – it’s called the ER which is subsidized by everyone paying premiums to their insurers and people paying out-of-pocket for medical care (Why do you think hospitals charge exorbitant amounts for even the little things? They need to cover their losses arising out of the ER.)</p>

<p>The system as it is – is GROSSLY INEFFICIENT – which is why we get so little “bang for the buck” for our healthcare dollars.</p>

<p>

Actually, I’ve heard from Canadians (living in Canada, not US immigrants) that the fact that its UNIVERSAL means there’s a waiting list long enough to envelop the earth a few times around. I know a kid who desperately needed heart surgery (he is 19 and had a hole in his heart) and they postponed the surgery 3 times and didn’t perform it until a year later. </p>

<p>Such a case could not happen in a private healthcare system because you are paying your buck for the company to treat you. They will never postpone your surgery 3 times because they have a monetary interest In a country with 300 million people, situations like this would happen nonstop if we had a universal healthcare system.

</p>

<p>The problem is that countries like Canada don’t pay enough to specialists which is why there is a shortage (many who end up working in the US) and consequently, sometimes a waiting period.</p>

<p>Otoh, the US has the opposite problem. Too many specialists and not enough primary care physicians (esp. in small cities/towns and the more rural areas). This is the result of much higher compensation for specialists as opposed to primary care physicians.</p>

<p>

I’m not really sure exactly how it would work, but in my opinion, socializing such a major industry in a free enterprise society seems to work against the basic ideals of our country…

</p>

<p>No need to socialize medicine.</p>

<p>Can have a dual-track system. Basic healthcare insurance for all (this would be cheaper overall than relying on the ER) and additional private insurance for those who want access to all the “bells and whistles”.</p>

<p>In addition to other reforms such as making all hospitals and HMOs not-for profit and requiring all insurance companies to use a standardized form.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>Germany, e.g., has private highly regulated health care. When you first enter the work force you join one of the providers (e.g., think Blue Shield). Your employer is not involved, other than paying half of the premium (and collects your half through payroll deduction and sends it in). Your premium is a percentage of your wages. If you are unemployed or retired, your premium is zero. You cannot lose coverage (unless you want to). Lots of details, but this is the basic structure.</p>

[dntw8up]

<p>“Germany, e.g., has private highly regulated health care…”</p>

<p>And it is doled out in a most miserly fashion. Americans would never vote for a German-style health policy.</p>

[k_amp_s]

<p>^ And that isn’t the case in the US where physicians and patients have to increasingly fight the insurance companies (that is, if the insurance company doesn’t drop coverage)?</p>

[vonlost]

<p>How it is doled out is an implementation detail. Ultimately households pay for everything (except what costs we pass on to our children, etc.).</p>

[Aodh]

<p>The infant mortality statistics have been proven completely false. They base those on what the country reports, and do you really trust Cuba? They abort a ton of the children with any signs of complications, and if a baby dies shortly after its birth, they do not count it as an ‘infant mortality’.</p>

<p>Let John Stossel educate you on the subject:
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (1/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4)
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (2/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W37NkjplWQ]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W37NkjplWQ)
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (3/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XsRzfckneg]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XsRzfckneg)
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (4/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGj4Ei9l0iI]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGj4Ei9l0iI)
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (5/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlNtWy8TX_Y]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlNtWy8TX_Y)
[YouTube</a> - 20/20 Sick in America: Whose Body is it Anyway? (6/6)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6QyTZs__Pw]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6QyTZs__Pw)</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>^^^
i don’t think that matters. the infant mortality rate is WAY higher than it should be. i think that people who are committed to social justice care most about the disparity between the infant mortality rate of poorer areas versus the rate of wealthier areas.</p>