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Because you feel that the healthcare industry was providing services at a cost you deem more than acceptable, that justifys a federally ran and subsidized system?
I know that its convenient to sit here and slam doctors for their salary, slam the insurance companies for high premiums, and slam the lack of government oversight and regulation to this date. But the fact is, some of the highest costs we see associated with the current health system is a direction reaction to government involvement in the system as well.
When a procedure has a market cost of X dollars, and the patient has medicare that only agrees to pay Y dollars, where do you think that extra money comes from?
When a homeless man gets hit by a car and rushed into surgery, how do you think that gets paid for?
In your utopian view, everybody should be living their lives as a service to others, especially the poor. You said:
"Not all American doctors go into the field to get rich. Some go out to underserved rural areas and so on."
Well good for them, but should that be the standard? Should we take actions to ensure that nobody is doing their job because they want to *gasp* earn money?
Doctors make a good amount of money, sure. Do consider though the cost and time spent preparing themselves to do so. Why is it a big deal if they are successful? Are you jealous?
We live in a capitalist society where everyones desire is to provide additional purchase power through wealth to ensure a comfortable life style. The real kicker is the fact that for 200 years, this has made the United States one of the most successful and profitable countries the world has ever seen.
You seriously want to tear that down because people aren't living their lives the way you deem as appropriate? Providing services because they want to earn money rather than to help out a stranger is wrong? You think that how you view the world through rose colored sunglasses made by a company called utopia is the right way? You use your bleeding heart as justification to tear down the system that has made ALL OF US rich?
how can private insurance survive in an environment where the gov't can set it's own prices, regardless of market value of those services?
It survives perfectly well in the U.K. (and other european countries to) Its also a damn sight cheaper to get private insurance here than the states. Please do some homework.
how can private insurance survive in an environment where the gov't can set it's own prices, regardless of market value of those services?
Duh wow the real issues are coming out now huh.....
To answer your question all you have to do is read newspapers all over the country on how insurance companies are scrambling to send their lobbyists to DC and line their pockets with money to persuade both republicans and democrats to kill this bill because yes, this could spell doom for their business....which is:
Overpriced, ineffective, and is only concerned with one thing "profit"
Insurance companies are recording record profits as much
as 400%
Instead of that money going into the rich man's pocket it could be going back into the same system that is crumbling from the weight of the health
industry in America which is currently the most expensive in the world and one of the WORST.
It survives perfectly well in the U.K. (and other european countries to) Its also a damn sight cheaper to get private insurance here than the states. Please do some homework.
Duh wow the real issues are coming out now huh.....
To answer your question all you have to do is read newspapers all over the country on how insurance companies are scrambling to send their lobbyists to DC and line their pockets with money to persuade both republicans and democrats to kill this bill because yes, this could spell doom for their business....which is:
Overpriced, ineffective, and is only concerned with one thing "profit"
Insurance companies are recording record profits as much
as 400%
Instead of that money going into the rich man's pocket it could be going back into the same system that is crumbling from the weight of the health
industry in America which is currently the most expensive in the world and one of the WORST.
One very simple question.
If the private insurers are making too much of a profit in your eyes, and you think that a different system could be implemented, then why to this day has none of the 30 million uninsured and underinsured created a not-for-profit health insurance company to serve these people? Why the reliance on government to do it for them?
Yes the U.K. system isn't perfect (shortages of maternity staff for instance) but I would add that report is from 2002. The then Labour goverment had only just started to fund the system properly after 2 decades of continued underfunding by the previous Conservative goverments. Thatcher set out on a policy to destroy the NHS by the backdoor as she couldn't dismantle the system directly. Now that report is proposing a system similar to European social insurance systems, such as France.
If the private insurers are making too much of a profit in your eyes, and you think that a different system could be implemented, then why to this day has none of the 30 million uninsured and underinsured created a not-for-profit health insurance company to serve these people? Why the reliance on government to do it for them?
Why not a non-profit insurance system for everyone? Such as the one Germany has?
The poor and other uninsured people do not have the MONEY to start an insurance company! They do not have the money to buy insurance from established companies so how could they start a competing company. If the 30% uninsured were a viable market you would thing an established company would be selling highly discounted policies to these people. I wonder why they don't. Peer pressure or lack of a 400% markup maybe?
We need adaquate health care. I think a government operated system could provide it at a lower cost than the private sector.
The fact remains that if these three elements were not so expensive this administration wouldnt be having to step in on our behalf. I was replying to someone who implied that under a UHC program doctors would make $17/hour in an all-Medicaid world.
The AMA gave the thumbs-up to this plan. If doctors were going to go broke as a result of it I dont think they'd have approved it, do you?
As for being jealous, I make out all right myself. I dont have millions but I dont lust after millions either, and pity those who do. I have two multi-multi-millionaire doctors in my family -- they're both gifted doctors, one at the absolute top of his specialty. I dont blame them for having accepted the money that was there for them to take, but they're overpaid; their big jolly incomes are the sunny side of the equation. They make the money they do because families and individuals are overcharged by hospitals and insurance companies -- to the point where the government has had to step in as you complained earlier in your post, to keep people from dying in the street.
You talk about the sunny side, but the darker side is a lot bigger and must be addressed.
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