Universal healthcare - Yay or nay?

[AF 802]

Government healthcare won't work. Just look at the post office or any other horribly inefficient government agency and tell me it'll work.

inb4 "muh medicare/medicaid". Those are contracted to third-parties, government just awards the contracts.

 

[Lysenko]

We'd have to have the condition that the government totally shuts off the sweet oxy/fentanyl supply that is killing everyone but the drug companies have too much money in the system it will never happen.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Healthcare is fucked on a fundamental level and needs to be torn down before it can be built back up properly.

Which will likely never happen.

 

[Outer Party Member]

Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.

The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.

Now, put these ratios and percentages together with one final number: The average American pays around $10,000 in health care. Drugs are expensive. The consequences of obesity include lifelong dependency on these drugs. Obese people have to visit the doctor and hospitals for illnesses and tests frequently. Again, those visits are expensive. As it happens, doctors get paid a lot more in the US than most countries, $230,000 per specialist $161,000 per GP a year. The UK is $150,000 per specialit and $118,000 a year. Now that’s a lot of money!

So, who foots the bill for the consequences of poor choices in life? The taxpayer. It doesn’t matter the current tax increase rate, because that cost will continue to rise as people get fatter. There will come a point where the cost of burden outweighs and reasonable tax people are willing to pay. If you want the notion of single-payer health care, you have to hit the gym and eat less.

Plus, would you want to pay for Amberlynn’s diabetes medication?

 

[Y2K Baby]

Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.

The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.

Now, put these ratios and percentages together with one final number: The average American pays around $10,000 in health care. Drugs are expensive. The consequences of obesity include lifelong dependency on these drugs. Obese people have to visit the doctor and hospitals for illnesses and tests frequently. Again, those visits are expensive. As it happens, doctors get paid a lot more in the US than most countries, $230,000 per specialist $161,000 per GP a year. The UK is $150,000 per specialit and $118,000 a year. Now that’s a lot of money!

So, who foots the bill for the consequences of poor choices in life? The taxpayer. It doesn’t matter the current tax increase rate, because that cost will continue to rise as people get fatter. There will come a point where the cost of burden outweighs and reasonable tax people are willing to pay. If you want the notion of single-payer health care, you have to hit the gym and eat less.

Plus, would you want to pay for Amberlynn’s diabetes medication?

Lol, Australia.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.

The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.

Now, put these ratios and percentages together with one final number: The average American pays around $10,000 in health care. Drugs are expensive. The consequences of obesity include lifelong dependency on these drugs. Obese people have to visit the doctor and hospitals for illnesses and tests frequently. Again, those visits are expensive. As it happens, doctors get paid a lot more in the US than most countries, $230,000 per specialist $161,000 per GP a year. The UK is $150,000 per specialit and $118,000 a year. Now that’s a lot of money!

So, who foots the bill for the consequences of poor choices in life? The taxpayer. It doesn’t matter the current tax increase rate, because that cost will continue to rise as people get fatter. There will come a point where the cost of burden outweighs and reasonable tax people are willing to pay. If you want the notion of single-payer health care, you have to hit the gym and eat less.

Plus, would you want to pay for Amberlynn’s diabetes medication?

what about universal healthcare but only for skinny people

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Universal healthcare can take many forms, but just about whatever form it takes, it invariably proves to be a worthwhile investment. Not only are healthcare outcomes generally better under universal coverage, but it is consistently more cost-effective as well.

The reason for this is quite straightforward: private enterprise is most effective when markets are elastic; government intervention is most effective when markets are inelastic.

In most cases, when the price of something goes up, demand goes down, but in the case of healthcare, demand doesn't change relative to pricing, because healthcare is an inelastic market. If you are sick and in need of medical treatment, then you are going to pay whatever you have to in order to get it, because the alternative is to suffer and die. Healthcare providers know this, and market mechanisms alone have no way of ensuring that they act in the best interest of consumers, because from their standpoint, they practically have a guaranteed customer either way.

This goes some way to explain why healthcare costs in America are so high, and why coverage has historically been so poor relative to other developed countries.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Universal healthcare can take many forms, but just about whatever form it takes, it invariably proves to be a worthwhile investment. Not only are healthcare outcomes generally better under universal coverage, but it is consistently more cost-effective as well.

The reason for this is quite straightforward: private enterprise is most effective when markets are elastic; government intervention is most effective when markets are inelastic.

In most cases, when the price of something goes up, demand goes down, but in the case of healthcare, demand doesn't change relative to pricing, because healthcare is an inelastic market. If you are sick and in need of medical treatment, then you are going to pay whatever you have to in order to get it, because the alternative is to suffer and die. Healthcare providers know this, and market mechanisms alone have no way of ensuring that they act in the best interest of consumers, because from their standpoint, they practically have a guaranteed customer either way.

This goes some way to explain why healthcare costs in America are so high, and why coverage has historically been so poor relative to other developed countries.

Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history to the point where our homeless, if traveled back in time, would be mistaken for royalty or the upper class. The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.

The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market. I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees. Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing. Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway. This sort of thing isn't new, but people never learn lessons from the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system#Criticisms

Nobody in America goes to the physician and has any idea what the costs are going to be.

 

[Cool kitties club]

Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history to the point where our homeless, if traveled back in time, would be mistaken for royalty or the upper class. The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.

The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market. I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees. Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing. Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway. This sort of thing isn't new, but people never learn lessons from the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system#Criticisms

Nobody in America goes to the physician and has any idea what the costs are going to be.

Hospitals had to hike up prices to make it seem like insurance was a better deal then it was

 

[Webby's Boyfriend]

Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.

The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.

Now, put these ratios and percentages together with one final number: The average American pays around $10,000 in health care. Drugs are expensive. The consequences of obesity include lifelong dependency on these drugs. Obese people have to visit the doctor and hospitals for illnesses and tests frequently. Again, those visits are expensive. As it happens, doctors get paid a lot more in the US than most countries, $230,000 per specialist $161,000 per GP a year. The UK is $150,000 per specialit and $118,000 a year. Now that’s a lot of money!

So, who foots the bill for the consequences of poor choices in life? The taxpayer. It doesn’t matter the current tax increase rate, because that cost will continue to rise as people get fatter. There will come a point where the cost of burden outweighs and reasonable tax people are willing to pay. If you want the notion of single-payer health care, you have to hit the gym and eat less.

Plus, would you want to pay for Amberlynn’s diabetes medication?

Then why don't they just loose weight?

The government could tax fast food and then use that revenue for universal healthcare or just deport all fat people to Africa.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?

I'd say the issue of waiting times is mostly influenced by the efficiency of the system in question and how effectively it is implemented. It's not clear to me that universal healthcare automatically leads to longer waiting times. It's surprisingly difficult to find reliable or comprehensive data on this, but the data we do have doesn't clearly suggest this. The UK has significantly lower waiting times than Canada, despite both having government run healthcare systems.

Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history. The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.

Food production is not an inelastic market though, because while food is of high overall value, it is of low marginal value. If the price of bread or milk were to suddenly go up, for instance, the demand would come down. The same is not true for healthcare.

The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market. I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees. Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing. Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway.

I don't disagree that the reasons for American healthcare costs are multifaceted, but I think your argument negates an important consideration, namely: why market forces were unable to prevent healthcare from becoming an insurance-lead market in the first place. I don't find tax breaks to be a very convincing explanation, because you are still left with the question of why healthcare providers couldn't simply undercut the insurance companies by offering services cheaper over the counter. I think my explanation already covers this: they have no economic incentive to.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Food production is not an inelastic market though, because while food is of high overall value, it is of low marginal value. If the price of bread or tard cum were to suddenly go up, for instance, the demand would come down. The same is not true for healthcare.

I'm no economist by any means but as I understand it, food IS considered an inelastic good. People need food to stay alive and will always need it. The fact that food is relatively cheap and if the price of any individual food stuff goes up, people will buy something else doesn't change the fact that food is food, and in a famine, the price would go up but the need for consumption would stay the same.

I don't disagree that the reasons for American healthcare costs are multifaceted, but I think your argument negates an important consideration, namely: why market forces were unable to prevent healthcare from becoming an insurance-lead market in the first place. I don't find tax breaks to be a very convincing explanation, because you are still left with the question of why healthcare providers couldn't simply undercut the insurance companies by offering services cheaper over the counter. I think my explanation already covers this: they have no economic incentive to.

I disagree, and I fail to see how this is different from college education, though I agree that they have no economic incentive to, because healthcare providers don''t undercut the insurance companies because the insurance companies are paying them. Healthcare, unlike nearly every other industry, has its pricing hidden behind a smokescreen of insurance; you pay the insurance company, and they pay the healthcare provider. Of course healthcare providers bump the price up. They're not trying to undercut insurance companies, whatever that even means, they're trying to milk as much money OUT of them, which is again exactly why college tuition keep rising--due to near-guarantee of financial aid, grants, and scholarships, colleges just shrug and bump up the price to what students were going to personally pay anyway. Remember when Martin Shkreli was in the news for bumping up the price of a dug something like 500x? It wasn't because he was trying to gouge the random few that needed it, no, as he himself stated it was to gouge insurance companies (if you could not afford it and had no insurance his company provided it for free).

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

I'm no economist by any means but as I understand it, food IS considered an inelastic good. People need food to stay alive and will always need it. The fact that food is relatively cheap and if the price of any individual food stuff goes up, people will buy something else doesn't change the fact that food is food, and in a famine, the price would go up but the need for consumption would stay the same.

Food might be an inelastic good in countries where food is scarce, but in the developed world, this doesn't hold true. Economic elasticity refers to the degree to which the supply or demand of a good or service is responsive to changes in pricing, and outside of extreme circumstances such as famine, food is highly elastic in this regard.

If we use bread as an example: if the price of bread were to suddenly go up, then people would start cutting down and buying less bread (hence: elastic demand). If demand were to suddenly go up (for whatever reason), then food manufacturers would simply produce more of it to meet the change in demand (hence: elastic supply).

The healthcare industry doesn't work like this. Firstly, supply is inherently limited by the costs and barriers to entry involved; secondly, the demand is inherently unresponsive to market forces due to the unusual combination of it's rarity and severity. It is not very often that you need emergency surgery or cancer treatment over the course of a lifetime, but when you do, it's a matter of life or death, and a change in price isn't going to make you want it less.

In short, healthcare is a seller's market, and this is true with or without insurance being involved.

I disagree, and I fail to see how this is different from college education, though I agree that they have no economic incentive to, because healthcare providers don''t undercut the insurance companies because the insurance companies are paying them.

Healthcare is different from college education in one crucial respect: the benefits the former brings are tangible and proven, whereas the benefits the latter brings are largely speculative. Having a degree from Harvard is likely to net you a much more prosperous career than that of a non-college graduate, but why is this the case? Is it because of the valuable skills that having such a degree equips you with, or is it due to the social status that people generally associate with an Ivy League education? This distinction is important, because the latter implies there is a bubble that could burst, whereas the former does not.

Healthcare, unlike nearly every other industry, has its pricing hidden behind a smokescreen of insurance; you pay the insurance company, and they pay the healthcare provider.

You pay for insurance because the cost of not doing so would be too much to risk. It's the difference between being caught out and having to sell your home to pay off a huge medical bill, or paying a regular (though just about manageable) fee to guard against that eventuality. Most people are going to choose the insurance.

They're not trying to undercut insurance companies, whatever that even means, they're trying to tard cum as much money OUT of them, which is again exactly why college tuition keep rising--due to near-guarantee of financial aid, grants, and scholarships, colleges just shrug and bump up the price to what students were going to personally pay anyway. Remember when Martin Shkreli was in the news for bumping up the price of a dug something like 500x? It wasn't because he was trying to gouge the random few that needed it, no, as he himself stated it was to gouge insurance companies (if you could not afford it and had no insurance his company provided it for free).

Which supports what I have been saying all along. The more inelastic the market for something is, the stronger the argument for government intervention. Market forces aren't going to correct the problems you've described.

 

[vanilla_pepsi_head]

Can only speak for Ontario, Canada but I've never faced unreasonable waiting times or received substandard care. Some of my American friends have spent 13+ hours in waiting rooms in NY but the longest I've ever waited is like 4 hours and I wasn't in imminent danger of dying so it's fair that the heart attack guy and stab wound guy jumped the line. From my experience the only people who bitch about waiting are the ones in there because their kid has the sniffles. There are a lot of rural areas where the health care might be ass, I don't know, but in the city I've never known anyone who needed access to health care services and couldn't get them.

It's very interesting the difference in attitude toward health care that Americans have. It really is considered a luxury and people are resentful against paying for a service that might benefit someone else. I kind of get it, but to Canadians that is bizarre. Here even the highly conservative people who are dead set against can't fathom taking away access to health care for the poor or disabled (or meth heads, breeders, fat people, smokers, etc). Personally I wouldn't be against providing a tax benefit for people who keep themselves healthier but implementing something like that would probably be so expensive it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Slap47]

Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?

XRay is a 30 minute wait at a walk-in clinic.

The issue with judging Canadian healthcare is that the system is heavily decentralized. Your province decides the quality of your healthcare.

Canada has longer wait times for certain operations but in America people just die. Dead men tell no tales.

 

[Wraith]

Oh I would just LOVE to have government run universal healthcare by the same people who screwed over the Indians and veterans on a regular basis, run by the same people who call people "deplorables," racist, nativist and does all sort of crap to people on a regular basis. I mean it wasn't like Oburma used the IRS to attack people he didn't like, what's the chance of the left swinging their flacid penors around to hurt people when they are most vulnerable, needing healthcare?

People suck. There will always be people who hate you will make use of whatever power you give them to mess with your life. We don't need harmful politicians who hate you for one reason or another to have another power against the citizenry to mess with them.

 

[The Shadow]

So I’ve been thinking about the current state of Healthcare in the U.S for some reason today, and I’ve been doing a bit of research into both sides of the argument in favor of and against universal healthcare. I’m still sort of on the fence as which one to support, though.

Then I looked at the sort of mediocre impact that Obamacare had on the American populace and I wonder, what could have been done better if we were to try again? I wanted to get some insight from people who might be a bit more savvy on this.

Everything could have been done better. Obamacare seemed to only make the system more complicated to me. Either go fully single payer (which I admit, I favor) or let the free market have full reign, but don't create a half-assed abortion that doesn't actually make it easier to get coverage.

I came in under the poverty line one year and was told I didn't make enough money to qualify for assistance. WHAT THE FUCK SENSE DOES THAT MAKE?

 

[garakfan69]

Just look at the post office or any other horribly inefficient government agency and tell me it'll work.

Look at countries where they privatized the mail service and tell me if it improved anything.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

this is not accurate.
it applies to emergencies like a gunshot wound or a perforated stomach, where you will literally drop dead or suffer permanent damage if left untreated.
but the overwhelming majority of the health care industry is not emergency care - the vast majority is dealing with mundane and banal situations like annoying lower back pain, recurring digestive problems, a bad knee, an itchy skin condition, etc. these are not life or death situations, just minor inconveniences. the health care market as a whole is highly elastic.

When an ailment causes enough discomfort that not having it medically treated negatively affects a person's quality of life, then what I said absolutely is accurate. Perhaps you could say that the demand for treatment in cases of more minor ailments is more elastic than it is for more severe ones, but this consideration doesn't in any way undermine my central point that healthcare is inelastic relative to other goods and services, it just diverts attention away from the areas where my argument is strongest.

Another consideration worth making here is one of prevention. Suppose one of the minor ailments you speak of could be the beginning of a more severe one? By having a system in place which empowers people to get it addressed early, you are saving money (and lives) in the long-term. What isn't sensible about that?