Free Market Health Care (financial, Walmart, elect, state)

[MTAtech]

Originally Posted by hnsq

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.

Please backup your statement. Every comparison that I have seen concluded that the US system is twice as expensive and delivers lesser care.
Here's Why U.S. Health Care Is So Expensive. by Newspaper Contributors on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

[jmking]

Originally Posted by RebelYell14

Free-market health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tell me why this is wrong?

Dealing with them when my wife and I paid premiums for 30 was just fine. When my wife became ill dealing with them added 10 years on me. My hair turned gray, I almost went bankrupt.

[nighttrain55]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Please backup your statement. Every comparison that I have seen concluded that the US system is twice as expensive and delivers lesser care.
Here's Why U.S. Health Care Is So Expensive. by Newspaper Contributors on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

I love the part about how the free market doesn't control the high prices. You know about the free market, the crown jewel to everything for libertarians.

[EinsteinsGhost]

Originally Posted by nighttrain55

I love the part about how the free market doesn't control the high prices. You know about the free market, the crown jewel to everything for libertarians.

The "invisible hand" would tickle them to death.

[jmking]

Originally Posted by ellemint

Healthcare is an essential service, like utilities or education. Without government oversite and regulation what is to stop healthcare service providers from colluding and charging ever higher fees so that only the wealthy are able to afford healthcare?

Anti-Trust legislation does not apply to health insurance companies on the most part. They in-fact collude and fix prices legally.

[MTAtech]

Buying insurance isn't like buying bread. With bread, you know what you're buying. With insurance, you only find out after you need it and then it's too late.

Also, there is a large incentive for the ins co to deny coverage or wear the patient down with requests for more documentation. This doesn't even include them trying to pawn the costs off to others.

[t206]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Buying insurance isn't like buying bread. With bread, you know what you're buying. With insurance, you only find out after you need it and then it's too late.

Also, there is a large incentive for the ins co to deny coverage or wear the patient down with requests for more documentation. This doesn't even include them trying to pawn the costs off to others.

I think you are mixing up health insurance and actual health care.

Every insurance policy is full of (painful and sometimes legally confusing) detail, with very exact prices.

Walk into a doctors office and ask how much any given procedure will cost and I'm certain you wont get an exact price.

Now with health care you may get the run-around when you try to use the product you signed up for (or think you signed up for) but its all spelled out and pricing is as well, unfortunately it might take a team of lawyers to get it and get it right.

No such scenario exists with the actual services being purchased from doctors though. Its all smoke, mirrors, and accounting tricks.

Not to say either side is right, but the insurance side at least attempts to present an illusion that its a transparent pricing model, while doctors and hospitals dont even try.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by RebelYell14

Free-market health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tell me why this is wrong?

Aside from the fact that it is on Pukipedia?

Originally Posted by RebelYell14

I did read it. So go ahead tell me what's wrong with it.

It's a Straw Man argument created by a pro-UHC advocate.

And it's on Pukipedia.

I'll answer your question, by debunking the grotesquely misinformed people below.

Telling...

Mircea

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Where in the world has this proven to actually work? We already know that single-payer government insurance does bring down cost...

That is a tautological argument.

I will let the German Minister of Heath refute and debunk you....

In the past 20 years, our over-riding philosophy has been that the health system cannot spend more than its income." --- Franz Kneips, German Ministry of Health - 2009

Single-payer costs less, because governments spend less.

It's a real simple concept.

I can create a single-payer system in the US, limit spending to $2,500 per person per year, and then strut about like a friggin' pompous ass proclaiming that the US has the cheapest health care system in the world.

But then a lot of Americans would die, because they would not get the health care they need.

Yes, countries with UHC/single-payer plans ration health care. They deny treatment. They delay treatment. They dilute treatment to the point of being ineffective.

I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that health costs a lot in the US, because it really does cost that much to properly treat people......without denying them care, without delaying their care and without diluting their treatment.

Going back to the German Minister of Heath...

In the past 20 years, our over-riding philosophy has been that the health system cannot spend more than its income." --- Franz Kneips, German Ministry of Health - 2009

....if the government is not spending more than it collects in revenues, then it should be more than obvious that people are not getting the best medical treatment.

Refuting....

Mircea

Originally Posted by ellemint

Nobody is suggesting free healthcare.

Yes, they are. I'm not saying you personally, but effectively that is what the foaming-at-the-mouth-advocates want. Read their posts....you'll see.

Originally Posted by ellemint

Healthcare is an essential service, like utilities or education. Without government oversite and regulation what is to stop healthcare service providers from colluding and charging ever higher fees so that only the wealthy are able to afford healthcare?

Uh, healthcare service providers collude and charge higher fees.

These are some of the services a small (low number of beds) hospital offers

* Hospice
* Dental
* Alcohol and/or Drug
* Smoking Cessation Clinic
* Speech Pathology
* Optometric
* Outpatient
* Pharmacy
* Radiology (Therapeutic)
* Outpatient Surgery Unit
* Neonatal Nursery
* Burn Care Unit
* Acute Renal Dialysis
* Long Term Care Unit
* Radiology (Diagnostic)
* Psychiatric
* Diet/Weight Loss
* Coronary Care Unit
* Physical Therapy
* Intensive Care Unit
* Inpatient Surgical
* Social Services
* Home Care Unit
* Organ Transplant
* Emergency Services (Organized)
* Shock Trauma
* Open Heart Surgery Facility
* Occupational Therapy
* Pediatric
* Nuclear Medicine
* Obstetrics

Okay, so the Smoking Cessation Clinic is losing money hand-over-fist.

What is the logical thing to do? Close the Smoking Cessation Clinic is losing money, what is the smart thing to do? Dump it. Shut it down, lay off everyone associated with it. But that is not what hospitals do. Hospitals raise the rates of all of their other services to cover the losses.

Suppose the OB-GYN clinic is losing money. The hospital won't shut it down, instead it will simply raise the rates of all other services to make up for the losses.

That is a fact. The true cost of open-heart surgery in this area is $13,000 but all of the hospitals charge $26,000 to $41,000. Why?

Because open-heart surgery is very profitable and it makes up for the financial losses the hospitals have on their other services.

In may areas of the US, you have competing monopolistic cartels. Here we have Tri-Health as one OPEC-style cartel, and then the Health Alliance is the other OPEC-style cartel.

And even though they are supposed to be competing against each other, they collude to fix prices at higher levels. They even black-list and low-ball hospitals that refuse to join the cartels, in order to force them to join.

It was a big deal here, because one of the hospitals had to go to court and file a law suit in order to get out of one of the cartels.

So what has government oversight done?

Nothing.

Deregulating...

Mircea

Originally Posted by HistorianDude

Free market healthcare is what broke it.

What an incredibly obtuse statement.

And you have facts to support your claim?

No, of course you don't.

Free Market Health Care in the US ceased to exist in 1941 when the War Labor Board and the IRS deemed health plan benefits to be a fringe benefit and not subject to taxation.

Reports and Decisions of the National War Labor Board, The Bureau of National Affairs, 4, 1943 Volume LXIV.

Nobody went to hospitals in the 1920s or 1930s, because hospitals were where you went to die, unless you had some long term illness that required care.

Don't you know your history?

Because of the Great Depression, hospitals began offering pre-paid health plans, and no that is not insurance because it does not involve actuarial science, does not assess risk and it is not a specific reimbursement for a specified peril.

The American Hospital Association then dictated to member hospitals that if it offered such plans, they must conform to certain requirements.

What is that?

That is an oligarchy, an Agent of Socialism, interfering in the Free Market.

Question: What is the driving force behind Health Care?
Answer: Technology.

What changed? What was it that caused Americans to want to go to an hospital?

A Scotsman on a horse invented penicillin in 1929, but no one could figure out a way to commercially produce penicillin until 1940. And then clinical trials weren't conducted until 1941. And even then penicillin was only used in the military --- it didn't become available to the general public until 1946.

Don't you know your history?

Instead of Sufla, people got Penicillin, and they had higher survival rates, thus initiating the demand for health care. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, antibiotics like Streptomycin and Terramcyin were introduced, commercially produced, and run through clinical trials.

That resulted in higher chances of surviving surgeries, and that increases the demand for health care.

The American Hospital Association's Committee to Destroy Free Market Health Care In The United States formally organized in 1946 as Blue Cross.

The AHA then lobbies Congress and the State legislatures to enact regulations that start driving up both the cost of health care, and the pre-paid plans which have now evolved into medical services cost-sharing plans.

Among the lobbying efforts undertaken by the AHA were tax subsidies to both employers and employees for health care plans.

How can you say there's a free market when government subsidies are involved?

How can you say there's a free market when an oligarchical agent of socialism like the American Hospital Association -- who wrote much of Obamacare -- is interfering in the Market by dictating the terms of the health plans?

Can you buy an health care plan that covers only emergency room visits and nothing else?

No you cannot -- you are not allowed because the AHA and the government said you are not allowed.

And you call that the Free Market?

Right.

Not even amused...

Mircea

Originally Posted by BoomBen

We have never had a true free market. We have massive conglomerates, monopolieis and oligopolies.

The current health insurance system we have is not a free market. There is little if any competition because we can not go interstate to purchase plans that maybe more suitable and affordable.

Obamacare has made our "free market" health insurance system worse. It empowered the monopolies even more.

Awesome.

You got it right.

To get to Free Market health care....

1] ban hospital cartels.
2] limit ownership of hospitals to one per Metropolitan Statistical Area.
3] repeal Section 6001 of Obamacare and encourage the development of highly specialized clinics (like Europe).
4] end all employer and employee tax subsidies
5] repeal all State "insurance" regulations except those regarding Capitalization and Liquidity.
6] a doctor on staff in hospital can refer a patient to another doctor on staff at another hospital, but a doctor cannot refer a patient to another doctor directly? That's stupid American Hospital Association nonsense. End it.
7] repeal all federal regulations regarding health plan mandates.

Do that and you'll have a truly free market system that is affordable to everyone, and provides highly efficient, highly effective care at the lowest possible cost.

And then, if there is any need for any regulation at all, the only thing that would be required is that people purchase some form of emergency room coverage, in the same way that people purchase limited liability coverage to drive a car.

Like in Ohio where a minimum $25,000 liability coverage is required to drive. You can purchase $25,000 of insurance, or you can purchase a surety bond for $200 that provides $25,000 of coverage in the event you have some objection to insurance companies or in the event no company will insure you.

Why can't you buy $50,000 worth of emergency room coverage for you or a family member?

Because you don't have Free Market health care.

Concurring...

Mircea

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by RebelYell14

I have seen and been to free clinics and charity clinics to help and to get help before. It works as long as the people know they are available and HUGE companies are not allowed to set up a monopoly with huge fees and regulations to offer insurance.

I have a problem with this statement. Can you get state-of-the-art chemotheorpy for cancer at a free clinic or a heart valve replacement at a charity clinic, or a shot of Avastatin (approx. 10,000 dollars a dose) to prevent blindness at a Walmart urgent care center? These el cheapo clinics are fine for a case of the flu or lifes bumps and bruises but they are not relevant if you have a life threatening health problem.

[jmking]

Originally Posted by lionking

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.

You're wasting your time with hnsq. Time and time again through many threads he spews the same, rebuffed in exactly the same way as in this thread. He's young and will learn the hard way. If not, there is a mental condition for those who are not able to place themselves in others shoes, even in the slightest.