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And neither of those countries comes close to the size of the US. What works well on a small scale doesn't necessarily translate well on a large scale. I don't recall any republican plan espousing the virtues of huge medicaid expansions at the state level. Perhaps you can give us some bullet point comparisons. Regardless, no GOP proposal passed in the 1990's, so it obviously did not have much support.
Good to see these ideas, and I must say I strongly support the move towards healthier life styles. One reason our healtch care cost are so darn high might be that although we want Cadillac health care we drive our bodies like drunk teenagers in Dad's T-Bird. Not very wise.
I don't understand all tax and regulatory recommendations, but I do agree that individual provided health care and employer provided health care should have similar tax exemptions (or vice versa). I am rather amazed that has not happened.
Admin costs would be reduced if people paid out of pocket for their own health care, especially for the routine stuff.
I also don't have much faith that the government will do anything to reduce administrative costs. They could do that right now with Medicare/Medicaid. Do these programs have lower administrative costs than private health insurance?
And we still haven't even gotten to the root cause of our health care cost problem.....70% of our health care costs are driven by unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Agreed, but we cannot legislate good health decisions. Perhaps rate incentives for good health are really the ticket.
We have a k-12 education system that is nearly fully socialized. We spend more per capita on k-12 ed than any nation except Switzerland. Yet we get poor results from all this spending--there are routinely 20-25 nations that rank ahead of us in student acheivement.
Prima facie evidence that a socialized approach does not magically yield cost control.
You can't talk about health care if you don't talk about cost. We will go bankrupt if we just try to cover everyone 100% without addressing the reasons why costs are so high in the first place.
As has already been mentioned, about 70% of our health care costs are driven by unhealthy lifestyle choices.
that leads to questions about the lobbying power of fast food chains , the kind of people who have no health insurance tend to dine at mc donalds quite often
We have a k-12 education system that is nearly fully socialized. We spend more per capita on k-12 ed than any nation except Switzerland. Yet we get poor results from all this spending--there are routinely 20-25 nations that rank ahead of us in student acheivement.
Prima facie evidence that a socialized approach does not magically yield cost control.
But a socialized approach equalizes everyone.
Lower the bar..everyone is a winner..everyone CAN !
that leads to questions about the lobbying power of fast food chains , the kind of people who have no health insurance tend to dine at mc donalds quite often
Soon they can use their foodstamps to buy that fast food and have their government subsidized healthcare take care of them.
I just read an article by Fareed Zakaria in Time that we spend by far the most money on health care (17% of GDP) of any advanced country. Some, such as Taiwan, spend much less (7%), and most others come in about 11-12%. By most measures, we have the most uinsured, among the highest infant mortality rates, lowest life spans, and highest diabetes rates of any of our peers, etc.
I get that people hate ObamaCare, but the status quo stinks. We pay far to much for far too little. It is clearly not good for people or business. American businesses must try to compete, while shouldering a burden that no other advanced nation demands of its companies. Have conservatives been duped into supporting the interests of the health insurance lobby? That is the only thing I can figure.
Or perhaps it is antigovernment sentiment. Like the military, health care is something that is too important to our unity and strength to be privatized. The drive for profit will victimize the most vulnerable, tossing them out precisely when they need help most. It is the sort of situation that requires ethics and generosity as much as enterprise, something government was invented to help with.
I have some concerns about chopping our health care expenditures too far. I recall a few years ago some, some Brits were using our % GDP spent on health care as an example of why it should be more in Britain. I'm no economist, G*d knows. However, it seems to me if you cut too far, people will not be able to access health care in a timely fashion, or get all the care they need. The US does have better cancer survival rates, and as a parent of a child who had cancer, I like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
You have to make those who require medical care active participants in controlling costs.
HSAs are a good way to go.
The consumer has to have some skin in the game.
Third party payer is the worst model and making government that third party with its ability to accumulate endless debt is reckless.
The consumer already has some "skin in the game" except in the rare circumstance where the employer pays the entire HI premium, and the employee (consumer) has no deductibles or copays. Also, while the consumer can control how often s/he accesses care to a certain extent, s/he has NO control over how much the doctor charges. Most charge within a few dollars of each other, anyway.
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I have very little patience for those who think the "answer" is to "eat right, excercise and buy your groceries at Whole Foods".
I have some concern about some of the statistics presented here about how much disease is really 100% preventable.
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