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If I recall from the Zakaria, Taiwan has single payer at 7% of GDP, and Switzerland has an individual mandate system at ~12% of GDP. Both are pretty similar to us politically. My recollection is that ObamaCare is pretty similar to the proposal put forward by the GOP in the 1990s. Why the outrage?
I agree with those who say skin in the game is important. I think you need to feel some of the pain.
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.
Yeah right. "They're having a sale on stents at St. Mary's."
Medical care is complicated and we can't expect lay-persons to participate in technical medical matters that may cut costs. An untrained person has no good way to evaluate whether one needs a particular test or procedure or not.
We really don't have to bang our heads against the wall nor re-invent the wheel. Our friends in Europe have already found ways to reduce the costs to half of ours, while delivering better medical results and covering all their citizens.
This "medical costs are complicated" excuse is BS. LOTS of things are complicated. Cars are complicated. Computers are complicated. Auto insurance is complicated Yet, there are reasonably free and competitive markets for these goods/services.
Health care has gotten complicated because the providers have not had to really look at which procedues/drugs really offer a true benefit and which ones don't because consumers don't really ask the hard questions. The reason they don't ask is because it's all "covered" by insurance (or at least it was until recently).
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 03-18-2012 at 02:32 PM..
If I recall from the Zakaria, Taiwan has single payer at 7% of GDP, and Switzerland has an individual mandate system at ~12% of GDP. Both are pretty similar to us politically. My recollection is that ObamaCare is pretty similar to the proposal put forward by the GOP in the 1990s. Why the outrage?
I agree with those who say skin in the game is important. I think you need to feel some of the pain.
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.
The link is exccellent. One important thing mentioned in your link that I alluded to in my long winded post was this:
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
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.
Yeah right. "They're having a sale on stents at St. Mary's."
Medical care is complicated and we can't expect lay-persons to participate in technical medical matters that may cut costs. An untrained person has no good way to evaluate whether one needs a particular test or procedure or not.
We really don't have to bang our heads against the wall nor re-invent the wheel. Our friends in Europe have already found ways to reduce the costs to half of ours, while delivering better medical results and covering all their citizens.
That's why we used to have family doctors.
They knew you and your medical history.
They consulted with you and made recommendations on your behalf.
Our insured friends in Europe die from cancers uninsured Americans survive.
That's a fact.
The way a bureaucracy controls costs is through blanket rationing.
No thanks.
I went through the public school system.
You can't tell me the same government will do a better job when they control medicine.
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.
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.
Lets talk about admin costs. We know that admin accounts for 25% of our health care costs. Lets look at a couple of examples ....
a) every insurance provider negotiates its own rate with the health care provider and may even have multiple rates depending on the status of the insured. This causes a huge amount of administrative overhead. Why not rationalize the cost structure to take overhead out of the system.
b) How many bills do patients get for a fairly straightforward procedure? Start by centralizing billing so that the patient gets one comprehensive invoice instead of a bunch of different ones.
We don't need a health care revolution to start taking cost out of the system. But we do need to be open to change.
Lets talk about admin costs. We know that admin accounts for 25% of our health care costs. Lets look at a couple of examples ....
a) every insurance provider negotiates its own rate with the health care provider and may even have multiple rates depending on the status of the insured. This causes a huge amount of administrative overhead. Why not rationalize the cost structure to take overhead out of the system.
b) How many bills do patients get for a fairly straightforward procedure? Start by centralizing billing so that the patient gets one comprehensive invoice instead of a bunch of different ones.
We don't need a health care revolution to start taking cost out of the system. But we do need to be open to change.
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.
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