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Find me a modern nation whose government is not drowning in debt due to propping up citizens with no plan to repay the money.
Thats a...very peculiar thing to say.
I mean, every other developed country with UHC delivers healthcare to pertty much the whole population -radically cheaper than the US. Not just radically cheaper, but the a US citizen pay more in taxes for government health care than the citizens of most other nations. And then the US taxpayer is left having to get private insurance in addition afterwards.
I mean, we are not talking a tiny bit more expensive here. The US healthcare system is in fact so much more expensive, that the difference is twice the US military budget, in GDP %.
A pretty good way of spotting if a country is third world or not is, if they've got a totally free-market healthcare system, they are third world.
I mean, every other developed country with UHC delivers healthcare to pertty much the whole population -radically cheaper than the US. Not just radically cheaper, but the a US citizen pay more in taxes for government health care than the citizens of most other nations. And then the US taxpayer is left having to get private insurance in addition afterwards.
I mean, we are not talking a tiny bit more expensive here. The US healthcare system is in fact so much more expensive, that the difference is twice the US military budget, in GDP %.
A pretty good way of spotting if a country is third world or not is, if they've got a totally free-market healthcare system, they are third world.
But countries with UHC are not cheaper than the US. The figures posted for health care as a % of GDP do not include what people spend on supplemental care.
I will repeat myself. When you look at the true cost of health care, countries with UHC have a significant amount of debt.
Australia and Switzerland also have some of the highest rates of people purchasing supplemental health insurance (which is not factored into published figures).
Australia and Switzerland has insurance-based UHC systems. Switzerlands system is for-profit insurance. They have regulations in place to deal with some of the obvious market failiure. They still normally have the second-highest healthcare costs in the world, after the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hnsq
You mean the kind of simplistic world where people think that the government will magically have the funds to pay for the country's health care?
I don't think you fully grok how much cheaper and more efficient the UHC systems are than free-market ones.
You mean the kind of simplistic world where people think that the government will magically have the funds to pay for the country's health care?
Got it champ.
You seem to have a problem reading...we have an obligation to help the poor, but why the hell should the government be involved? Get off your a** and volunteer, donate money, do something yourself instead of sitting back and just hoping the government will take care of everything. Typical liberal...wants to help the poor, not enough to personally do anything, so the government has to take care of it for us.
How about we continue to do the same thing we've been doing for the last 40 something years. I'll go to work, the government will take money out my paycheck, 90% of us will go on with our lives and not complain, unlike libertarians, and if we have to make changes, so be it. The reality is, medicare is going to be reformed anyway to be solvent, but it ain't going away. I donate money all the time, but I live on planet earth and realize all the private charity in the world isn't going to help all those in need.
I feel sorry for you. I really do. That being said, you are the exception, not the rule. Lets try to make decisions based on facts, not based on the exceptional stories that tug on our heartstrings, ok?
I'm far from exceptional. I might not be the most common, but it's not rare.
Just taking young adults as an aggregate (because young adult illness is what I'm most versed in):
- 35% of ALL YOUNG ADULTS between 18-34 have problems with medical bills including getting calls from collections agencies, paying off medical debt, or having to seriously alter their life to accommodate for medical expenses
- Out of every age group in the United States, 18-34 year olds have the most medical debt.
These come from Kairol Rosenthal's blog. She was one of the first AYA survivors to serve as an advocate for all of us. Read some of the comments.
Everyone from my oncologists to the woman who manned the front desk to my PET scan techs to the pharmacy to my coworkers and family knew that I was struggling with debt. I have been very open about it in my blog as well as vocally. I had a social worker who looked for resources for me. Coworkers gave me rides. It was almost like another full time job for me to fight with the insurance companies and call every local and national nonprofit or charity that I could. I came up empty handed and got the same response - there was too much demand for too few resources. How can I be an exceptional case when even my hospital tells me they can't do much to help because of the high need for charity care? I'm far from an exception.
Australia and Switzerland also have some of the highest rates of people purchasing supplemental health insurance (which is not factored into published figures).
First, I'd like to see your evidence of that.
Second, so what? You asked about universal-care countries with low debt. I showed them to you.
But countries with UHC are not cheaper than the US. The figures posted for health care as a % of GDP do not include what people spend on supplemental care.
I will repeat myself. When you look at the true cost of health care, countries with UHC have a significant amount of debt.
Repeating it doesn't make it true. First off, private debt tends to be associated with housing and consumption, not health care. Given that studies show how little is used on private health care in other nations, I don't see how it could possibly be on a scale to impact debt levels. Honestly, you'd have to have lived in the US all your life to see that as a possiblity! Elsewhere, the notion that healthcare might eat up that much money just wouldn't occur.
Here:
Source: Wall Street Journal
The pink bar is private spending. The red one is public -from taxes. Note how little other countries spend on supplemental health care? (The Canadian figures are inflated due to Americans purcasing drugs in Canada. Registered as private spending)
As seen in the article below, out of 199 hospital systems studied, the average yearly revenue was $1.98 billion. Given 1% of sales as bad debt expense is a very acceptable figure in most industries, that leaves each hospital system with $19.8 million in a bad debt expense to write off every year, which is a very reasonable number. Tell me, do you have any actual numbers (you know, math?) to back up what you are saying?
Cutting expenses will allow the average worker to minimize the debt should they need to go through bankruptcy.
Why is bankruptcy a bad thing?
Find me a modern nation whose government is not drowning in debt due to propping up citizens with no plan to repay the money.
And a person's ability to pay for medical care is their responsibility, not the governments.
And you are right, I have never gone without good medical care. I am 27 years old, I have worked 85 hours/week on a job where the contract stated that I should work 40 hours/week. I did that for five years without complaining and because of that earned a very lucrative salary, so no, I don't have much empathy for someone who doesn't put in the effort to actually take care of themselves financially. Having enough money to pay for emergencies is the responsibility of the individual, not the government.
You are basing your opinion around your current situation and believing everybody else falls into your mold or model, which your situation could change later by the way.
So you were able to work 85 hours a week when your contract stated 40, even if some people could work that much many companies won't allow it to keep pay role costs down. Some companies will only hire part time in today's economy.
At 27 I had never had a health issue, at 35 I had my first skin cancer. After that NO insurance would cover me unless it was under a group plan tied to a employer.
Maybe if you thought outside your own box and realized the plight of others who sometimes become over whelmed even though they planned and saved the best they could, then maybe you would have some empathy.
When all other avenues have been exhausted they may have no alternative but to turn to government and even though I am generally a believer that smaller government the better what I have experienced personally and seen of others when it comes to health care, if government is needed to fill in the gap I support it.
One poster mentioned insurance is suppose to be people pooling together to limit their potential disaster if it strikes, pooling into government if effectively the same thing. The pit fall for either is when they dictate to you, and private insurance tries to dictate as much as government, private insurance looks for was not cover the risky and not pay out.
There are things I don't like about Obama's plan, there are things I don't like government being involved in, but free market and private healthcare has its own pitfalls and greed also.
I don't know all the solutions, I am not sure which way to support, but I know for my own moral code and I think what should be the nations moral code also is that value of life as for saving life is not determined by someone's financial wealth, that a poor person deserves treatment as much as a rich person when treatment is readily available.
And what percentage of hospital cases fall into this category? Don't use the one-off minority cases as a rule to make a decision for what should happen to the entire nation.
...I just told you what to do about the bad debt. People should give up their cable and internet, sell their car and ride a bike to work, cut expenses until they can pay their bills. How is that hard to understand?
Yeah, you told US all right. Your response reminds me of the James Wagoner quote:
"For every problem, there exists a simple and elegant solution which is absolutely wrong.
-- J. Wagoner, U.C.B. Mathematics"
I've spent my adulthood living within my means. That doesn't always cut it, though. I was in the hospital a year ago for three days for a hip replacement. The total bill from the hospital was $76,000. No typo. You think cutting out a $30/mo cable bill, or even a $100/mo bundled cable/internet/whatever bill is going to help pay that off? You don't know anyone else's circumstances. If you have a paid up car, the cost per mile to run that car is usually less than the cost of public transportation. Not everyone lives close enough to work to bike, and not everyone has public transit available.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nighttrain55
but health insurance is not really a free market society because everybody needs its. on top of that, just because you have different options, its doesn't mean those other options are great. on top of that, insurance companies wouldn't have any reason to take on a sick client, and why do libertarians assume a private charity will take care of everyone that can't afford it?
Because it fits with their philosophy. It's certainly not because that works! If it did, we wouldn't need any government programs.
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