Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Where does this story come from that 'people in Canada die on waiting lists' whereas this doesn't happen in the US? Can anyone show me where it says that in the US people don't die waiting for crucial treatments?
EDIT
Or any other country for that matter?
Last edited by Adrian II; 06-28-2009 at 20:40.
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
From a Canadian doctor who moved to Minneapolis because he can make obscene amounts of money there. He's now trying to convince the Americans that they mustn't adopt the Canadian healthcare system. Because, erm...the US system is good for the patients.Originally Posted by Adrian II
No, really, it is good for Americans.
Really.
Last edited by Louis VI the Fat; 06-28-2009 at 21:59.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
I see. So it comes from someone who practices social darwinism in the guise of medicine, a bit like our rory?
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
There's absolutely no valid reason to explain why members of the military have free healthcare and other people don't.
Breach of equity of the worst kind. Nationalism is definitely stupid.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Why do you hate freedom?
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
My apologises to my earlier post. It was something I read some where and remembered it. I will however, post a proper source and proper results.
Best Healthcare in Rank according to the World Health Organization 2000 report.
1 France (Universal Healthcare Insurance System)
2 Italy (Universal Healthcare State-funded)
3 San Marino (Universal Healthcare State-Funded)
4 Andorra (Universal Healthcare Insurance System)
5 Malta (Universal Healthcare State-funded)
6 Singapore (Universal Healthcare Hybrid of Public and Private)
7 Spain (Universal Healthcare State-funded)
8 Oman
9 Austria (Universal Healthcare State-funded)
10 Japan (Universal Healtcare Insurance System)
...
37 United States of America (Does not have a Universal Healthcare System) (72nd by overall level of health)
Last edited by Beskar; 06-29-2009 at 02:14.
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
I believe Meneldil is saying it's a breach of equity that you need to sign up to bomb foreigners in order to getBut to say it's a breach of equity that the Military should offer me outstanding healthcare?freestate healthcare.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Like welfare with more collateral damage.
Though then again, it certainly is for-profit for all the "defense" contracts we no-bid to people.
Last edited by Alexander the Pretty Good; 06-29-2009 at 02:24.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Technically the President works to get re-elected, which only sometimes coincides with the best interests of the people who elected him (which is only sometimes a slim majority of the people who pay the taxes that fund his military).Nobody joins the Army on behalf of the Corporations that equip the military. Similarly, the military does not work for corporations. The Army works for the President. The President works for the people who elected them.
I really do appreciate the conspiracy theories, but the Army is hardly anything sinister. Uniformed opinions abound.
But regardless, the military is a state organization, and healthcare it provides is state healthcare. Hell, you have separate state hospitals if you'd prefer it.
Furthermore, what does it say about the military that recruitment goes up when the economy is bad? Maybe it's not all about "defending" America and apple pie...
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
It strangely makes sense within the US system. Your employer pays your healthcare insurance. Great healthcare benefits are one of the perks of joining the military - together with education. Both not readily accessible to all in the US.
The system makes a person beholden to her employer for healthcare insurance. Power is the reverse of what it ought to be. To me, not corporations, but people ought to be the focus of society. Citizens should be free and healthy, at least, independent in access to healthcare. Then employers can bid for the services of these healthy, independent and free citizens - on their knees.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Yes, there is, as I pointed out above. But it is like that almost everywhere - members of the military of Canada also get extra benefits of that nature.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
There is absolutely a valid reason. It's a benefit provided by the state to help encourage people to sign up for the armed forces. It's essential for a nation to have armed forces, therefore it's essential for the nation to compensate their military well enough to maintain adequate numbers, it's really as simple as that.
The demand for anything is infinite when price is removed as a consideration. As it stands, our health "insurance" makes about as much sense as grocery insurance. Why not let people buy grocery insurance- or better yet, have it provided by their employer. You can go to the grocery store as often as you want and you'll pay the same premium for your insurance no matter what. What do you think would happen to the price of groceries?
What I think we need to do is 1) divorce health insurance from employment. It should be something you can choose based on your personal needs/preferences and it should be something you can continue to purchase regardless of who your employer is- or even if you're employed at all. 2) I think insurance should actually be insurance- against catastrophic events. If I get the sniffles, I should be able to pay out of pocket for a doctor's visit and antibiotics. If I'm in a car wreck and severely injured, insurance should kick in. We could probably engineer some kind of tax credit the goes into something like a health savings account that people could use on non-insurance type expenses. Each year, anything that you haven't spent you can pocket. Give people some real incentives to keep healthcare costs down.
Do most people even know what a doctor's visit costs? I'm sure people know what their copay is, but do they know or even care what the total cost is?
Last edited by Xiahou; 06-29-2009 at 06:29.
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Immunisation has a benefit for not just the individual, if enough of the population has it a disease can be stopped in its tracks because it can't find vectors to viable hosts. So immunisation of most diseases should be subsidised by the state.
What I think the healthcare system should be aiming for is outcomes. Increase the health of society. Take a more holistic approach. Put more medicos in per dollar and less bureaucrats. Make it harder to sue for accidents and easier to prosecute malicious Drs (less monetary gains and more criminal)... malpractice insurance should go down as it should be harder to sue for accidents. While actual criminal actions should be handled by the state, no vigilante justice by suing.
Allow the state to handle emergency and the private system to handle boob jobs.
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Whilst I agree with this, sadly there's a massive amount of grey between these two cases. Even with these two there's some variance. And it is the case that State would be free?
For example, although most women have boob jobs to, uh, uplift their self image, there are some who have very unequal breasts and this causes significant psycological distress. Then there's post cancer / trauma or even infection.
And if someone is having recurring flare ups of gall stones, it would over time be cheaper to whip it out once and have a 3 day inpatient stay than have attacks every few months requiring far more state resources.
An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
This principle does not apply to immunisation only.
Society as a whole benefits from a high level of general health, hygiene, prevention and disease control. Like fire prevention and the maintenance of public order, health is a common good, not a private issue.
That's why health care systems with socialized funding compare favourably to health care systems based on private funding. Lemur and Louis already pointed to longevity, infant mortality and related criteria. Only three OECD member states have no universal health care: the US, Turkey and Mexico. On most relevant indicators in the latest comparative OECD study Health at a glance 2007, those three are at the bottom of the table. For a rich country like the US this should be unthinkable, but it is the truth. Infant mortality, age expectancy, mortality from heart disease and stroke, all cancers, low birth weight and infant mortality, you name it - in all instances the US rates well below the OECD average or well below expected outcome based on GDP.
Sorry guys, your system stinks because it is based on private funding. Socialised medicine (also known as state health care) has its drawbacks as shown by the NHS, but that is not the same as socialised funding.
Switch to socialised funding, cut costs, live longer and send your kids to a school where not one in three kids has missing teeth and one in ten has problems due to premature birth, obesity &cetera.
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Okay.
Not an in-depth study but why does the USA private insurance system cost the gov't more (per capita) than the Canadian gov't insurance system? If you cover less ppl (proportionately) by spending more money, this speaks to a very peculiar transfer of resources. Efficient? How?
No doubt beneficial to some segment of society
Ja-mata TosaInu
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Based on my experience with my Insurer From Hell, I can tell you what the doctor says the visit costs, what his employer says the visit costs, what my insurer says the visit costs and what I'm told at the paperwork station about its cost. The cool thing is that you get four wildly different answers.
If you think HSAs are the way, with some sort of catastrophic insurance to gild the lily, cheers. How would you address people with chronic illnesses? Pay for treatment until they can't anymore? Then what?
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
They die. Just like they do anywhere else in the world when they can't afford treatment. OK, often this is for things that are pitifully easy to treat.
Living beyond one's means now can also mean living for too long, unless the burden should just fall on the young exponentially whilst the elderly and infirm have 24 hour care from healthcare professionals plus meds and the rest.
Healthcare economics is an area where hard decisions have to be faced.
An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
"If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Yes, it is. If the military is the only state organization that receive free healthcare, I don't see how you could claim otherwise.I'll be the first to say that the Army makes someone out of touch with the civilian world. I still get culture shock when I go on leave--and it gets worse every time, especially after Iraq. But to say it's a breach of equity that the Military should offer me outstanding healthcare?
I don't care what's your job, where you'd been fighting and what not. You signed up, for I guess a few reasons. You're doing your job, which involve getting shot at. That's dangerous and brave, but that's what you signed up for.
Having a military is not essential for a nation, it's essential for the US, because of their honestly war-focused foreign policy and their role as a superpower. That doesn't change the fact that a soldier shouldn't have more rights than the average citizen.
That's kind of funny if you think about it. American right-wing people keep claiming universal and free healthcare is crap and would doom their entire country, but when it comes to the army, it's the fair reward for a dangerous job and serving your country. Talk about hypocrisy.
I guess we're kind of getting used to it by now
- "The state shouldn't offer free healthcare. Except for the military"
- "The state shouldn't rule our lives. Except when it comes to abortion and homosexuals"
Last edited by Meneldil; 06-29-2009 at 17:04.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Uh, how is that unequal? Someone working for the IRS may not get the same health care benefits, but that's because of his own career choice - he could have signed up for the military, but decided not to despite the health care.
I suppose one could argue that the military shouldn't pay for medical treatments that have no relation to the work done, but suggesting that getting shot isn't any different from a sprain limb after doing construction work is pretty daft
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Yes, it is, and if it isn't immediately, it will be.
Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
Yes, it is, and if it isn't immediately, it will be.
Costa Rica seem to have done okay for themselves, and without the expense of an armed forces...
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
I don't think as many people die waiting for them - more may die because they can't pay for them. My point is that Canada's system is no great advantage over our current one.
CR
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Re: The U.S. Health Care Debate
I think CR has hit on a very important distinction. My argument is as follows:
(1) The appetite for healthcare is infinite.
(2) No society can appease all healthcare needs and wants and survive.
(3) Therefore, rationing of some sort takes place in every market.
In our society, that rationing takes place in two ways: Either you are uninsured and must decide what you can afford, or you are insured badly, and must decide what level of bureaucratic hell you wish to endure.
Personally, I'd rather see the rationing hashed out in a more public way, but that's just me.
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