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Today, we have doctors choosing to not accept certain "payers" in the system, because they are not being properly compensated, the "payer" refuses to pay at all, or the quality of service is so bad, that the payment process drags on, taking weeks, months or years to settle.
You are trying to tell us that doctors desire a single "payer" with a monopoly, setting a single standard on compensation and quality of service????
I think you should direct that question to the doctors who support that idea you raise your eyebrows on. I've provided a link in my previous post.
What are you trying to tell? That no such ideas exist?
UHC is correlated with healthy countries, but that does not make it the cause of a healthy country.
When our nutrition is so radically different from other countries, how can you single out the healthcare system as the cause of our relatively poor health?
My belief is that AIDS in africa is caused by cultural problems, not their healthcare system.
The question was how it relates to education.
I'm not clear on why people keep trying to change the subject to whether or not a healthy society is a productive one. All I have to say to that is: No sh*t.
Well it does actually. Look at Canada. Culturally similar nation with better rates of health (even if you compare along ethnic and income lines they come out better).
It may be your belief that AIDS is cultural, but it's not. Pilot programs in nations that aggressively invested in healthcare showed improvement in reducing AIDS. Uganda reduced the AIDS percent from 30% of the population in 1980 to about 6% today. Preventative services of transmitting from mother to children, along with increased condom use (since abstinence did increase and subsequently declined, but condom use is now more prevalent) helped stem AIDS.
My brother-in-law is a surgeon. He is on-board with the idea and recognizes that the USA cannot stand economically unless radical changes are implemented in education and health-care, and that includes the possibility of a single payer system. As for the rest, you could contact these folks, and know at least a few doctors that are for single payer system.
Surely you recognize that your brother-in-law's opinion does not constitute a majority of doctors.
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In other words, we should just resort to ideologies rather than speak on practical terms that demand realities.
No, I dispute whether what you say is possible. This does not seem to be a subject that lends itself to one reality that we all agree upon.
Well it does actually. Look at Canada. Culturally similar nation with better rates of health (even if you compare along ethnic and income lines they come out better).
Canada is not similar enough to the U.S., to make this a fair comparison in my mind. Canada is more homogenous, is much colder, has lower crime, has a better GINI index, and has natural resources per head that exceed the U.S.'s, among other factors.
Gang rapes are common in the lawless areas run by the warlord of the day. Gang rapes are more common in Africa then any where else, just ask the poor women in the villages were the rapes occur.
Again the continent is huge. Gang rapes might be prevalent in Asia than Africa. However, that would be a gross mis-characterization of the entire continent.
Not to mention there are MANY stable nations, on the continent.
My aunt is a poor lady in a village in a war torn nation. Nothing really happened to anyone we knew in our prefecture.
Examine closely all of the developing countries in Africa or Asia where schooling is in fact not widely available. Only the elite there get educated while the masses are left to mire in poverty and illiteracy. It is fair to say that freely available universal public education has created the great prosperity and high quality of life in developed countries we see today.
Few people would argue that the U.S. would be better off as a whole if all public schools were shut down and only those of wealth could obtain it by paying for private school. That would be a position that would find little support. There are of course libertarian extremists that would argue that education shouldn't be provided publicly even while actually acknowledging that society as a whole would be worse off. But then that makes supporting libertarianism completely unfathomable.
But if we assume that universal public education for all is a good idea, then why is this such a bad idea with regard to healthcare?
Imagine that our "education system" were like our current "healthcare system". Instead of govt-run public schools available to all, it was all run by big for-profit "education companies". And depending on which employer you had the fortune to work for, you had access to affordable and better "education company plans" and thus better schools due to negotiating group discounts. But otherwise you'd have to pay exorbitant fees as individual buyers. And if you were fired or were unemployed, well your kids might be kicked out of school because they are now no longer members of the company sponsored "education plan".
Anyway I won't belabor the point but you get the idea. If our education system was run like our health care system it would probably be a disaster overall. Except for libertarian extremists that say only those of wealth and privilege should have the right to buy education and society as a whole be damned, few people would prefer an education system that resembled our current health care system and would agree that govt-run universal public education is better.
So if we as a society (I assume) would much prefer universal public education that we have now, why do we tolerate the current health care system when it seems clear to me that we would never tolerate it as an "education system"?
Families that value education and the doors that it opens will spend their money on the best options available. Those that don't will sentence their children to a life of digging ditches and scrubbing toilets. People should not be taxed for education, but instead allowed to spend their money tax free for education. People without kids would get a break.
Canada is more homogenous and has a better GINI index.
Hence why if you compare along racial lines (Blacks in Canada to Blacks in the US) or along income lines (poor Canadians to poor Americans) you see that Canada is still better in terms of health.
Surely you recognize that your brother-in-law's opinion does not constitute a majority of doctors.
Didn't claim that. After all, that would be as true as these few doctors you speak of. I've to respect his opinion on the subject. Now the idea that you would jump to majority is interesting in itself. To take on that issue:
No, I dispute whether what you say is possible. This does not seem to be a subject that lends itself to one reality that we all agree upon.
I am not asking you to dispute my point on the subject (we've been doing that in the other paragraph), but here to present facts to support your argument. Is your argument ideology based? Or something more, that has stood the test of time in the real world?
Canada is not similar to the U.S., culturally. Canada is more homogenous, is much colder, has lower crime, and has a better GINI index, among other factors.
Canada is VERY culturally similar to the US. It's lower crime is a function of policy. The GINI really became grossly different at around the 1980s. Our city patterns are relatively similar...as compared to Europe. We both enjoy the same mass consumerism (as compared to Europe). We aren't terribly different.
Didn't claim that. After all, that would be as true as these few doctors you speak of. I've to respect his opinion on the subject. Now the idea that you would jump to majority is interesting in itself. To take on that issue:
It wasn't a stretch; you did claim a majority, and at the time you provided an anecdote about your brother in law, but no data.
As far as the link goes -- correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me like the study found that 10% support a single payer system. The majority support a "combination of public and private insurance", which would be different from single payer.
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I am not asking you to dispute my point on the subject (we've been doing that in the other paragraph), but here to present facts to support your argument. Is your argument ideology based? Or something more, that has stood the test of time in the real world?
My argument is essentially that more competition gives you lower cost, and less competition gives you higher cost.
Is this the ideology that you want me to provide facts to support? I'm not saying I will -- my time and effort regarding this are limited -- I ask because the ideology of the 'free market' is a basic principle of capitalism that I assume is accepted by most educated people. It might be more productive to explain why you think this principle does not apply to healthcare.
Last edited by le roi; 02-14-2011 at 11:34 AM..
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