Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

**Papewaio** · 06-13-2013, 21:20

Problem with a market model for medical care is that it is not a fair buyer-seller relationship.

Often the buyer has to be healthy to get insurance. Wait months before being eligible for various benefits and a lot of insurance benefits tie your medical procedures to the insurers preferred choice. So you have buyers who spend money to get a delayed benefit as determined by the seller, to deal with scenarios which are not always elective for the buyer.

Also it is a highway mans dilemma "Your money or your life". So the rates get ratcheted up and up as time passes. As you become more at risk your premiums go up. So for a lot of retired people it is not an affordable option.

Universal health care provides a baseline access. With private healthcare mixed in it shortens the wait time for those paying for it and the universal healthcare provides a minimum level of competition and covers any overt or covert private health gaps. Also every person who moves to private health should in theory shorten the queues in the public system. However specialists are a limited resource that in Australia have a quota as set by their own colleges. So it doesn't really shorten the line for public health.

Universal healthcare provides here a free to play option. Private health provides bonuses such as queue jumping and a private room.

Get the combination right and you have a cos efficient synergy. Get it wrong and you double up all that is wrong in both big government and big business.

**Lemur** · 06-13-2013, 21:26

Originally Posted by Papewaio

double up all that is wrong in both big government and big business.

Yeah, that's the hybrid jackalope we managed to create here in the States. It may be hideously expensive and bureaucratic, but at least we get middling to sub-par results.

**LittleGrizzly** · 06-13-2013, 22:37

Who's everyone else?
......................

I was mainly referring to the working/middle classes...

**HoreTore** · 06-13-2013, 23:17

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

A misleading label, in my opinion. Much of the working class in in poverty, and the middle-class is in fact rich by any standard that isn't coming from a perspective of considerable wealth. If you want Congress to get the point, make them live like the lowest common denominator for a month or so. Hell, that should be like a rite of initiation for politicians--you could even make a reality TV show about it.

The US has no concept of classes. When a factory worker or plumber can call himself middle class, you know society is on the wrong path... Fear of the reds, I guess.

**drone** · 06-13-2013, 23:27

Originally Posted by HoreTore

The US has no concept of classes. When a factory worker or plumber can call himself middle class, you know society is on the wrong path... Fear of the reds, I guess.

Plumbers actually make good money.

**HoreTore** · 06-13-2013, 23:31

Originally Posted by drone

Plumbers actually make good money.

Yes, the working class can make good money. As I said, the US has no concept of classes. A plumber is working class, no matter how much money you throw at him.

**HoreTore** · 06-14-2013, 06:13

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

Every country has a concept of class, we just do it differently than Europeans. To say we don't have a concept of classes is just silly.

A plumber can call himself middle class. That's silly.

You're all terrified of being workers.

**Tuuvi** · 06-14-2013, 06:19

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Yes, the working class can make good money. As I said, the US has no concept of classes. A plumber is working class, no matter how much money you throw at him.

If a plumber is self-employed and runs his own plumbing business is he still working class or is he a member of the bourgeoisie?