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However, I have a better idea yet… why don’t we each take responsibility for our own health care – choose our own doctor and hospital and take responsibility for paying same.
Because it is economically inefficient and more expensive than having real socialized medicine and millions of people would perish from treatable conditions. Contrary to popular dogma, health care is one of those items that does not work well in a real free market economy. At least it does not work well if the goal is for the sick, poor, and the elderly to be able to obtain treatment.
Almost every other first world nation has some form of real socialized medicine and it has proven to be far, far superior to the American system in terms of cost and coverage. Let's do a side-by-side comparison: United States:
•17% of GDP and growing spent on health care
•Tens of millions uninsured or under-insured
•Insured people living in terror of losing their jobs and health insurance
•Hundreds of thousands of medical bankruptcies each year, many of whom had insurance
•Businesses burdened by insurance concerns and costs.
•Wealthy insurance executives (and a thriving yacht industry)
Nations with Real Socialized Medicine:
•Much smaller percentage of GDP spend on health care
•100% coverage
•Zero medical bankruptcies
•Often more doctors per capita
•A more content populace
•Businesses not burdened by insurance concerns
•Fewer wealthy insurance executives (oh noes! Whatever will happen to the yacht industry?)
Here is an article in Forbes that cites an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report that claims that the other nations spend a smaller percentage of their GDP on health care:
The problem of health care spending growing faster than incomes is also a problem that plagues the private sector, which explains why total spending on health care in the economy has doubled over the last 30 years to a current level of about 16% of GDP. CBO estimates that this percentage will double again over the next 25 years to 31% of GDP.
Americans widely believe that while the our health system is expensive it is nevertheless the best in the world. However, a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests otherwise.
According to the OECD, the U.S. spends 5% of GDP more on health than France, the nation with the second highest level of health spending among the 30 wealthy countries in the organization. The average for all OECD countries is 8.9% of GDP. We spend $7,290 per person on average versus $2,964 among all OECD countries.Norway, the nation with the second most expensive health system on a per capita basis, spends $4,763. (Currency conversions based on purchasing power parity.)
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Even more significant is the fact that despite spending vastly more on health than any other country, the U.S. has little to show for it in terms of key measures of health resources. For example, we have fewer physicians per capita than most other OECD countries: 2.43 per 1,000 population versus an OECD average of 3.1. Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway all spend at least a third less of GDP on health than the U.S. yet have almost four doctors per 1,000 population.
Note that we probably have more insurance company CEOs and executives, more insurance brokers, more benefits plan managers, and more medical billing specialists per capita than any of those other nations! We also have more people dying from treatable conditions and more medical bankruptcies. We also probably have more small businesses that suffer or never get started because of health insurance costs. It's good to be first in something, I guess.
How is that? When poor women have children, the government ends up spending a huge amount of money over at least two decades to provide welfare, food, housing, education, health care, and alter any criminal justice costs that children born into poor families and rough neighborhoods may incur on society.
Here's a better idea: abolish all those "entitlement" programs and it won't cost the taxpayers a dime! Why, what did we do before all those programs? Dunno, but people managed to get by just fine. Indeed, welfare programs have produced most of that crime and the rough neighborhoods. Wanna see the roughest neighborhood in just about any large city? Just go to the ones that the government built with taxpayer money!
I have an answer to that question, as my mother is from the U.K. and her entire side of the fam still lives there.
Everyone in the UK is covered. There are private insurance companies but you're basically given the right to general care... ER visits, doctor visits etc. It's utopia.
The problem comes when you really get sick. British outcomes for most cancers are much worse than the USA. You're as much as 50% more likely to die from breast cancer in the UK than you are here. The access to care in larger English markets is worse than in the most rural areas of the USA.
While this is anecdotal, it should be mentioned that my aunt died of breast cancer at 51 years old. In the UK, they do a cost-benefit type analysis to determine your place in line to get treatment for diseases. Since my aunt was still fairly young, she was put in line ahead of those older than she. However, her younger age still did not get her into the OR in time.
My uncle recently passed away from colon cancer, although he lived to a later age. As he was in his mid 70's, he was pretty much told "don't call us, we'll call you" and given pain pills.
Contrast that to my mother, who lives in a small city in Minnesota. She went from a positive mammogram to the OR in about a week. They could have had her in earlier, but she didn't want to miss my nephew's birthday.
Health insurance in the US is expensive, and it is in the UK. Obamacare will double the percentage of GDP that we spend on care. In the UK the cost is hidden, although not very well since taxes are high and gas is $7 a gallon.
Suffice to say that everyone in the UK is insured, but not all are treated. We have far better outcomes here. We may pay more for those outcomes, but remember that most of your advances in medicine are here in the USA although they won't be for much longer. We spend more in healthcare costs because WE, not France, not Canada, not the UK are the ones who develop the most.
Watch Tommy Boy closely at the part where he talks to the parts company manager about the warranty on the competitor's product. That's what universal health insurance gets you.... a nice guarantee on the box to make you feel good, but it's worthless when you actually need it.
I couldn't agree more Dave. This has been my experience with the Canadian system as well.
Too many folks think "free" means that the money just falls out of the sky. I just read the President Obama appointed Dr. Donald Berwick as the head of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Dr. Berwick has advocated government rationing of health care and has praised the system of rationing in the U.K. We now have a good insight into the what is in our future.
Anyone who believes that our bloated federal government can take over the healthcare system and make it more efficient is living in lala land. Remember the $400.00 hammers the DOD purchases? Ever wonder why the (more) socialized countries are in much worse shape financially that we are... Greece, Spain, Portugal?
Almost every other first world nation has some form of real socialized medicine and it has proven to be far, far superior to the American system in terms of cost and coverage.
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But not actual care. You get what you pay for. Coverage and cost could have been adjusted via reform, not dismantlement of free-market and implementation of socialized care.
Socialized medicine is not some utopia of flowers and rainbows.
FYI, your listed facts are largely incorrect and/or aren't necessarily relevant to this discussion.
Because it is economically inefficient and more expensive than having real socialized medicine and millions of people would perish from treatable conditions. Contrary to popular dogma, health care is one of those items that does not work well in a real free market economy. At least it does not work well if the goal is for the sick, poor, and the elderly to be able to obtain treatment.
Almost every other first world nation has some form of real socialized medicine and it has proven to be far, far superior to the American system in terms of cost and coverage. Let's do a side-by-side comparison: United States:
•17% of GDP and growing spent on health care
•Tens of millions uninsured or under-insured
•Insured people living in terror of losing their jobs and health insurance
•Hundreds of thousands of medical bankruptcies each year, many of whom had insurance
•Businesses burdened by insurance concerns and costs.
•Wealthy insurance executives (and a thriving yacht industry)
Nations with Real Socialized Medicine:
•Much smaller percentage of GDP spend on health care
•100% coverage
•Zero medical bankruptcies
•Often more doctors per capita
•A more content populace
•Businesses not burdened by insurance concerns
•Fewer wealthy insurance executives (oh noes! Whatever will happen to the yacht industry?)
Here is an article in Forbes that cites an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report that claims that the other nations spend a smaller percentage of their GDP on health care:
Note that we probably have more insurance company CEOs and executives, more insurance brokers, more benefits plan managers, and more medical billing specialists per capita than any of those other nations! We also have more people dying from treatable conditions and more medical bankruptcies. We also probably have more small businesses that suffer or never get started because of health insurance costs. It's good to be first in something, I guess.
The OECD is a European organization that is an advocate of socialistic economic reforms, including socialized medicine. They were supportive of Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus plan and an advocate of nearly limitless unemployment benefits.
Their healthcare study is flawed in that most of it is self-reporting. On other words the various countries reported their own stats. The flaw is that each country has their own method of recording and reporting statistics. Furthermore, each reporting country inherently wants their health care system to be the worlds finest. For example Cuba recently announced a lower infant mortality rate, but I doubt that the OECD actually questioned the Castro regime and fully researched the findings. Each country also has their own methods for determining live birth rates as well as causes of death i.e. natural deaths and deaths the to serious disease or accidental deaths. For example if a person dies of cancer at the age of 80, that would be death from disease in the U.S. but a natural death in most European countries because of his age. In the U.S. this cancer patient would receive treatment regardless of age, but in the U.K. would be determined not worthy of treatment because of his age and value to society.
Read my last post where I said we have to keep an open mind, but with a certain amount of skepticism toward those who wish to deceive us.
By the way, the yachting industry continues to boom even in this economy and employs 10’s of thousands of workers in good paying jobs building yachts with the vast majority exported out of the U.S. I hope to have one someday.
Here's a better idea: abolish all those "entitlement" programs and it won't cost the taxpayers a dime! Why, what did we do before all those programs? Dunno, but people managed to get by just fine. Indeed, welfare programs have produced most of that crime and the rough neighborhoods. Wanna see the roughest neighborhood in just about any large city? Just go to the ones that the government built with taxpayer money!
What did people do in the past? Die on the streets I suppose. If the social welfare programs were abolished you would end up having hundreds of thousands if not millions of people homeless and dying on the streets, just like in a third world country.
I agree that we need to address mass poverty and address it in a way that may not be politically correct, such as forced sterilization for women who have already had two children and requiring poor women on welfare to use passive birth control (IUDs, Norplant, etc.) and (men too) to keep off drugs and alcohol.
I also think that government funded abortion as well as changing our culture so that people don't feel as badly about having an abortion but rather think that it is the smart and socially responsible thing to do is part of the equation. This area is a good example of how widespread religious belief damages our society.
(Of course, I'm an intransigent atheist and don't regard embryos and fetuses that could not possibly have a brain developed enough to have a human personality or consciousness as people. I know that religious people would heartily disagree, but that's just an essential part of what I think the government needs to do to address this issue.)
But not actual care. You get what you pay for. Coverage and cost could have been adjusted via reform, not dismantlement of free-market and implementation of socialized care.
But many of those countries have more doctors per capita than we do in the United States as well as longer lifespans.
Quote:
FYI, your listed facts are largely incorrect and/or aren't necessarily relevant to this discussion.
What alleged facts do you find to be incorrect or irrelevant?
The OECD is a European organization that is an advocate of socialistic economic reforms, including socialized medicine. They were supportive of Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus plan and an advocate of nearly limitless unemployment benefits.
Their healthcare study is flawed in that most of it is self-reporting. On other words the various countries reported their own stats. The flaw is that each country has their own method of recording and reporting statistics. Furthermore, each reporting country inherently wants their health care system to be the worlds finest. For example Cuba recently announced a lower infant mortality rate, but I doubt that the OECD actually questioned the Castro regime and fully researched the findings. Each country also has their own methods for determining live birth rates as well as causes of death i.e. natural deaths and deaths the to serious disease or accidental deaths. For example if a person dies of cancer at the age of 80, that would be death from disease in the U.S. but a natural death in most European countries because of his age. In the U.S. this cancer patient would receive treatment regardless of age, but in the U.K. would be determined not worthy of treatment because of his age and value to society.
Read my last post where I said we have to keep an open mind, but with a certain amount of skepticism toward those who wish to deceive us.
OK, fair enough. I agree that alleged facts need to be double checked and whatnot. It's possible that some of those nations have determined that it makes more economic sense to allow some terminally ill patients to die rather than spend gobs of money bending over backwards to extend elderly people's lives for six months.
I suspect that most of the cost savings the nations with socialized health care enjoy come from cutting out the insurance company middlemen, which are people who provide no actual health care at all but just push paper. Those would include insurance company employees, medical billing specialists, insurance salesmen, insurance advertisers, and company benefits plan managers.
Quote:
By the way, the yachting industry continues to boom even in this economy and employs 10’s of thousands of workers in good paying jobs building yachts with the vast majority exported out of the U.S. I hope to have one someday.
I'm not surprised since the wealthy class seems to be doing an excellent job of stealing wealth from the lower classes, transferring middle class wealth to themselves. Many Americans just hope that they can work an honest, secure middle class job while being able to afford a modest house and health care.
I suspect that every American hopes they can have a yacht, too, one day. One of the big issues is whether or not it's better to have an economy where 5% of the population can enjoy yachts and the other 95% are mostly impoverished or where 1% of the people who actually made intellectual contributions to the act of wealth production (the Hank Reardens and John Galts of the world) can have the yachts with most of the other 99% being comfortably middle class while also having an upper middle class.
Health care, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. If your nation is impoverished it's going to have crappy health care. Likewise if your nation is well-off it's easier to afford good health care. So the state of the nation's overall economy is thus essential to the provision and affordability of health care.
In my view one of our huge problems and the driver of having an economy where 5% of the people are well off with the rest being poor is Global Labor Arbitrage. By merging our nation's economy and labor market with the billions of impoverished people in the third world, the laws of supply-and-demand (of and for workers) allow the wealthy class can keep a larger portion of the value of a worker's contribution to the act of wealth production for themselves, resulting in lower wages and a lower standard of living for Americans.
OK, fair enough. I agree that alleged facts need to be double checked and whatnot. It's possible that some of those nations have determined that it makes more economic sense to allow some terminally ill patients to die rather than spend gobs of money bending over backwards to extend elderly people's lives for six months.
I suspect that most of the cost savings the nations with socialized health care enjoy come from cutting out the insurance company middlemen, which are people who provide no actual health care at all but just push paper. Those would include insurance company employees, medical billing specialists, insurance salesmen, insurance advertisers, and company benefits plan managers.
I'm not surprised since the wealthy class seems to be doing an excellent job of stealing wealth from the lower classes, transferring middle class wealth to themselves. Many Americans just hope that they can work an honest, secure middle class job while being able to afford a modest house and health care.
I suspect that every American hopes they can have a yacht, too, one day. One of the big issues is whether or not it's better to have an economy where 5% of the population can enjoy yachts and the other 95% are mostly impoverished or where 1% of the people who actually made intellectual contributions to the act of wealth production (the Hank Reardens and John Galts of the world) can have the yachts with most of the other 99% being comfortably middle class while also having an upper middle class.
Health care, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. If your nation is impoverished it's going to have crappy health care. Likewise if your nation is well-off it's easier to afford good health care. So the state of the nation's overall economy is thus essential to the provision and affordability of health care.
In my view one of our huge problems and the driver of having an economy where 5% of the people are well off with the rest being poor is Global Labor Arbitrage. By merging our nation's economy and labor market with the billions of impoverished people in the third world, the laws of supply-and-demand (of and for workers) allow the wealthy class can keep a larger portion of the value of a worker's contribution to the act of wealth production for themselves, resulting in lower wages and a lower standard of living for Americans.
You’re right about the dollar value of life, but here in the U.S. with the exception of abortion, we don’t place a dollar value on life.
Actually, most of the money the nations with socialized healthcare save is due to research and development. We spend billions on research, development and education. Most new drugs and new treatments come from the U.S. As well, many foreign doctors are educated and trained in the U.S. then take that knowledge back home to practice medicine. Many people don’t know this, but most of the money spent on R & D actually comes from corporate investors but is counted in the money spent on healthcare. Much of the cost of healthcare in socialized countries is hidden in the form of taxes, and the cost of the bureaucracy to administer healthcare is not included in the actual cost of healthcare. The reason socialistic countries don’t spend as we do on R & D is that there is no financial incentive.
The rest of your post is Marxist gobbledygook and class warfare. Nobody but government can steal wealth from you without your permission. And I can assure you, the government has stolen far more wealth from you than you probably even realize. Nobody got rich off the backs of the lower class. They got rich by hard work and ambition. Do you realize how many workers are employed in the yachting industry, or the luxury car industry? Do you know where the next Henry Ford will come from… that’s right out of the auto industry. Furthermore, I don’t know of a single middle class person, who doesn’t someday desire to be wealthy. This is the only country in the world where that can happen with hard work, dedication and ambition.
My daughter came from San Antonio Tx to Nebraska for a visit on April 29, 2110. She is in the Air Force and had recently injured her knee and had gone in for an MRI. Today, July 9,2110, she called to tell me she had just received word back that she has broken her knee. How's that for efficiency? That's TRI-CARE....government medicine. It took over 69 days to find out she does indeed have a broken knee....A face to put with the health care mess that you sure never saw while they were shoving it down our throats... hope it doesn't become the "all too familiar" face of the future.
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