Universal Health Care Pro/Con

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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Parodite wrote:I tend to favor a system of 'free' health care for all where the money needed is collected via the (national or state-level) tax system, thusly bypassing the layer of competing insurance companies and healthcare provided by employers. Instead it is directly transferred to those providing healthcare services like hospitals etc.
Only socialists and communists believe competing private concerns is less efficient than government monopoly. Only socialists and communists think that, not libertarians.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Parodite wrote:I tend to favor a system of 'free' health care for all where the money needed is collected via the (national or state-level) tax system, thusly bypassing the layer of competing insurance companies and healthcare provided by employers. Instead it is directly transferred to those providing healthcare services like hospitals etc.
Only socialists and communists believe competing private concerns is less efficient than government monopoly. Only socialists and communists think that, not libertarians.
Heathcare in the US is not competing private concerns. It is a cartel with price fixing. Hospitals will never give estimates for care. The check the patient's insurance & credit rating and then charge whatever they think the patient can pay.

The system is completely anti-capitalist and non-competetive. It is simply expensive, and the consumer has no input or recourse.
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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

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I know and agree but that is not what we were talking about. He was speaking in abstractions, as he would have no idea as a foreigner anything about us healthcare, as few Americans even understand it as we do.
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.

"Universal Health Care" is part of "Universal Human Right"


Look below at "Cyrus the Persian" CYLINDER

Cyrus_Cylinder_front.jpg
Cyrus_Cylinder_front.jpg (255.77 KiB) Viewed 2531 times

You see that "damaged" part .. well .. that is where Cyrus mentions "Universal Health Care" :lol: :lol:


.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Simple Minded »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Medical care in the US is not a free market. It is a cartel with price collusion by the government, hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry. Prices are fixed; there is no competition. Smart people get their hips replaced in Thailand or India. WTF, you get a Thai or Indian surgeon in the US anyway (my Paki pulmanologist is great!) .

Obamacare is a strategy where the insurance companies are encouraged to fund the destruction of this cartel. The end game is single payer, which works well in every country but the US. This is why the GOP refuses to challenge Obamacre or fight for a free market healthcare system. Maximum current graft for minimal current pain.

No traditional jobs, no employer funded insurance payments. As people are pushed into Über and other contract labor traditional employee benefits disappear. When everyone is squeezed into single payer, the pressure will be on the providers and the cartel will crumble. A new free market insurance system will arise, but Obamacare needs to break the cartel first.
I am always a bit surprised to hear an American say "The end game is single payer, which works well in every country but the US." as an article of faith. I work for a large international company, and over 70% of the Canadians, Brits, French, and Germans I know who have worked in the US for over a year think the US health care system is better than their respective systems.

Kinda makes me think "better" is every bit as subjective as beauty, opportunity, offense, or oppression.

The grass is always greener......... on Cecil's side of the fence cause the Zebras, gazelles, and wildebeests don't graze over there!

Other that that, I agree that more free market is needed. Deregulate human health care to the veterinary health care level and watch prices drop.

O-care was never about cost control, just about power & $.

Imagine if they taxed obesity.......
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

American healthcare insurance companies are merging. Laissez-faire capitalism has failed here and we are well along the road to single payer.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Simple Minded »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:American healthcare insurance companies are merging. Laissez-faire capitalism has failed here and we are well along the road to single payer.
A couple minutes on Google reveal that the FDA was given it's current name in 1930 and evolved from earlier organizations. So it seems we have not had "Laissez-faire capitalism" in medicine since at least 1930. It would be interesting to know what medicine would be today if unregulated for decades. Dodge City? Silicone Valley?

I think single payer will become a reality for many, at least for a couple decades. Will it be better? Only the person on the receiving end will know for sure. Opinions will vary.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:American healthcare insurance companies are merging. Laissez-faire capitalism has failed here and we are well along the road to single payer.
Hold your breath on that, let us know what happens.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Simple Minded wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:American healthcare insurance companies are merging. Laissez-faire capitalism has failed here and we are well along the road to single payer.
A couple minutes on Google reveal that the FDA was given it's current name in 1930 and evolved from earlier organizations. So it seems we have not had "Laissez-faire capitalism" in medicine since at least 1930. It would be interesting to know what medicine would be today if unregulated for decades. Dodge City? Silicone Valley?

I think single payer will become a reality for many, at least for a couple decades. Will it be better? Only the person on the receiving end will know for sure. Opinions will vary.
Thanks to obamacare Single Payer will never happen in the US. It is one of the few good things to come out of the obama administration. Maybe the only thing.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Well-informed laser history of US health insurance by a former Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO. Good background for the discussion.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Typhoon
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Parodite wrote:I tend to favor a system of 'free' health care for all
Health care is never free. It is a huge portion of the budget for any single payer country. Most of them are going bankrupt and will kill millions.
Sure. Millions and millions will die. Sounds just like an environmentalist giving a speech at an Earth Day rally.

Life expectancy at birth:
image010.gif
image010.gif (8.78 KiB) Viewed 2429 times
See, it's already started :roll:

Healthcare as a percentage of GDP:
image008.gif
image008.gif (7.82 KiB) Viewed 2429 times
So who is going bust?
Mr. Perfect wrote:
where the money needed is collected via the (national or state-level) tax system, thusly bypassing the layer of competing insurance companies and healthcare provided by employers. Instead it is directly transferred to those providing healthcare services like hospitals etc.

Does it make me a health-care communist? I'm also a roads-communist and education-communist.
Yes you are a communist.
:lol: Don't you mean pinko commie funny foreign language speaking fluoridating pansy foreigner?

I was trying to recall what your constant refrain reminded me of and finally it came to me.
You sound like the elderly Jane and Amy Faulkner sisters in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
who believe that everyone is pixielated.
Any relation?
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Parodite
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Parodite »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Well-informed laser history of US health insurance by a former Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO. Good background for the discussion.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
If I get him right, the insurers got maneuvered into a position to play a role that should not be theirs to begin with: to make deals with hc service providers for those who put their money in the big basket. A better role would be it seems to me, if they make sure all that money is not used by banks and their banksters in high-risk semi-legal ventures.

They could also audit hospitals on price-quality and then give them stars just like hotels are tagged. 2/3/4/5 star. Consumers of healthcare can also themselves rate the services (and even individual doctors) they get. Competition then follows naturally.

To criticize the medical Priesthoods of doctors et-al is maybe difficult for many people. My ol' mother finds it very difficult to just dump her home physician and try another one. She is very unhappy with her current one. Years of listening to her complaining without her being able to do the obvious.. It's not that simple for the older generation. Consumers should also force the health industry to compete... Just eating whatever they feed you is inviting the devil at your table.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
image010.gif
image008.gif
Throwing on my statistics jacket, hmmmmm..... Looks like people with unhealthy lifestyles have higher health care costs and don't live as long.
Am I missing something?

https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204447

Other downside, it is much harder to pick up a fat chick. :P

300% tax on food, subsidize tobacco products to encourage consumption, so health care costs go down, and Social Security costs go down.
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Typhoon
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Typhoon »

Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
image010.gif
image008.gif
Throwing on my statistics jacket, hmmmmm..... Looks like people with unhealthy lifestyles have higher health care costs and don't live as long.
Am I missing something?

https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204447

Other downside, it is much harder to pick up a fat chick. :P

300% tax on food, subsidize tobacco products to encourage consumption, so health care costs go down, and Social Security costs go down.
Not ascribing cause, rather pointing out that there is no evidence for the prophecy of millions dying in countries with universal health care and that if anyone is going to go bust from healthcare costs, then the data suggest that it will be the USA and that it will be the mandated benefits that will do it.

Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
Image
[Source: OECD]

Ideology driven economics, like all revealed religions, consist mostly of prophecies.
Few, if any, ever come to pass.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

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Excerpt from http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
By virtue of political accident, the employer-based system of health insurance came about through a confluence of two things:

1/ During WWII, FDR’s National War Labor Board (which enforced wartime wage and price controls) ruled that fringe benefits, which included health insurance, were not subject to wage controls. Exactly how this happened is unknown, but the result was that although wages were frozen, employers could spend more on health insurance, and the unions were all over that like white on rice.

2/ The 1954 Internal Revenue Service codified that while the cost of health insurance could be deducted by employers, it was not income to employees. A huge incentive that continues to today and has embedded employer based coverage in America as the norm rather than governmental coverage, which is the norm everywhere else.
So it turns out it was statist commie government policies that gave rise to the current structure of the US healthcare insurance system with less than zero influence from laissez-faire market economics.

This is one of the most ironic and sadly amusing bit of history that I have read in ages.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
Not ascribing cause, rather pointing out that there is no evidence for the prophecy of millions dying in countries with universal health care and that if anyone is going to go bust from healthcare costs, then the data suggest that it will be the USA and that it will be the mandated benefits that will do it......

Excerpt from http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
By virtue of political accident, the employer-based system of health insurance came about through a confluence of two things:

1/ During WWII, FDR’s National War Labor Board (which enforced wartime wage and price controls) ruled that fringe benefits, which included health insurance, were not subject to wage controls. Exactly how this happened is unknown, but the result was that although wages were frozen, employers could spend more on health insurance, and the unions were all over that like white on rice.

2/ The 1954 Internal Revenue Service codified that while the cost of health insurance could be deducted by employers, it was not income to employees. A huge incentive that continues to today and has embedded employer based coverage in America as the norm rather than governmental coverage, which is the norm everywhere else.
So it turns out it was statist commie government policies that gave rise to the current structure of the US healthcare insurance system with less than zero influence from laissez-faire market economics.

This is one of the most ironic and sadly amusing bit of history that I have read in ages.
and it is not the least bit surprising to those of us who have experienced it. The relationship between cause and effect is usually pretty obvious.

Spend an hour sometime discussing the cost of healthcare with a someone who has been a doctor for 20 or more years. It is a hell of an education.

Imagine how cheap housing and automobiles would be without regulation. My family has been in the building/construction trade for a couple generations. Same situation exists in housing.

My brother is a builder back home in NY. The last 1/2 mile of road in the subdivision he put in is 25' wide. New town ordinance. Reason: emergency vehicle access. The subdivision roads are 22' wide, the highway that the accessing the subdivision is 20' wide.

Same in VA. My neighbor developed three lots at the end of our subdivision. The last 100 yards of road is 5' wider than everything else, and is the only road segment in the subdivision that has both curbs and drains.
Last edited by Simple Minded on Mon Apr 25, 2016 11:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Simple Minded »

Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Well-informed laser history of US health insurance by a former Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO. Good background for the discussion.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
If I get him right, the insurers got maneuvered into a position to play a role that should not be theirs to begin with: to make deals with hc service providers for those who put their money in the big basket. A better role would be it seems to me, if they make sure all that money is not used by banks and their banksters in high-risk semi-legal ventures.

They could also audit hospitals on price-quality and then give them stars just like hotels are tagged. 2/3/4/5 star. Consumers of healthcare can also themselves rate the services (and even individual doctors) they get. Competition then follows naturally.

To criticize the medical Priesthoods of doctors et-al is maybe difficult for many people. My ol' mother finds it very difficult to just dump her home physician and try another one. She is very unhappy with her current one. Years of listening to her complaining without her being able to do the obvious.. It's not that simple for the older generation. Consumers should also force the health industry to compete... Just eating whatever they feed you is inviting the devil at your table.
Agreed. Free markets and availability of choice drive down the cost of most products and services. People in general manage their own money better than others manage someone else's money.
A few years back, while at my doctor's office. I thought of several friends who have been morbidly obese for 20+ years, and who bitch about the cost of health care. Whenever I get ten pounds above lean and mean, My doctor tells me to lose some weight. I have often said to my wife: "Can you imagine what P's doctor must say to him, year after year after year?"

So, I asked my doctor "Do doctors ever fire their patients?"
Dr. B: "In a word, yes!"
His son, who is also a doctor was visiting and said "Dad only has so much time in a day. Why should he waste his knowledge on someone who won't listen, when there are others he can help?"

Dissatisfaction, choices and options are good for all involved.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by noddy »

Typhoon wrote:
Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
Image
[Source: OECD]

Ideology driven economics, like all revealed religions, consist mostly of prophecies.
Few, if any, ever come to pass.

those guys predicting that costs will just keep on going upwards are looking quite silly based on that graph :)

this is why my country is bailing out of universal healthcare and moving to private before the baby boomer lump escalates it furthur.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Typhoon »

noddy wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
Image
[Source: OECD]

Ideology driven economics, like all revealed religions, consist mostly of prophecies.
Few, if any, ever come to pass.

those guys predicting that costs will just keep on going upwards are looking quite silly based on that graph :)

this is why my country is bailing out of universal healthcare and moving to private before the baby boomer lump escalates it furthur.
I doubt it matters which option the govt chooses.

If history is any guide, the baby boomers are going to vote themselves healthcare at the expense of everything else.
No matter what.
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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: Sure. Millions and millions will die. Sounds just like an environmentalist giving a speech at an Earth Day rally.

Life expectancy at birth:
image010.gif
See, it's already started :roll:
Do you know what a post hoc fallacy is, or a ponzi scheme.
Healthcare as a percentage of GDP:
image008.gif
Medicare is extremely expensive. Everyone has admitted to that.
So who is going bust?
Everyone.
:lol: Don't you mean pinko commie funny foreign language speaking fluoridating pansy foreigner?
No, I would say communist.
I was trying to recall what your constant refrain reminded me of and finally it came to me.
You sound like the elderly Jane and Amy Faulkner sisters in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
who believe that everyone is pixielated.
Any relation?
No.
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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: I doubt it matters which option the govt chooses.

If history is any guide, the baby boomers are going to vote themselves healthcare at the expense of everything else.
No matter what.
Actually obama cut Medicare by almost a trillion dollars to pay for obamacare.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote:Excerpt from http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/ ... -plan-ceo/
By virtue of political accident, the employer-based system of health insurance came about through a confluence of two things:

1/ During WWII, FDR’s National War Labor Board (which enforced wartime wage and price controls) ruled that fringe benefits, which included health insurance, were not subject to wage controls. Exactly how this happened is unknown, but the result was that although wages were frozen, employers could spend more on health insurance, and the unions were all over that like white on rice.

2/ The 1954 Internal Revenue Service codified that while the cost of health insurance could be deducted by employers, it was not income to employees. A huge incentive that continues to today and has embedded employer based coverage in America as the norm rather than governmental coverage, which is the norm everywhere else.
So it turns out it was statist commie government policies that gave rise to the current structure of the US healthcare insurance system with less than zero influence from laissez-faire market economics.

This is one of the most ironic and sadly amusing bit of history that I have read in ages.
It's common knowledge in the US. It is truly amazing that you didn't know before now.
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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: Not ascribing cause, rather pointing out that there is no evidence for the prophecy of millions dying in countries with universal health care and that if anyone is going to go bust from healthcare costs, then the data suggest that it will be the USA and that it will be the mandated benefits that will do it.

Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
Image
[Source: OECD]

Ideology driven economics, like all revealed religions, consist mostly of prophecies.
Few, if any, ever come to pass.
Single payer countries are going bankrupt around the world. They can't blame tax cuts for the rich or military spending.

Making a population dependent on a government entity and then the government entity going bankrupt only ends one way. It's just math.
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Typhoon
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Typhoon wrote: Not ascribing cause, rather pointing out that there is no evidence for the prophecy of millions dying in countries with universal health care and that if anyone is going to go bust from healthcare costs, then the data suggest that it will be the USA and that it will be the mandated benefits that will do it.

Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
Image
[Source: OECD]

Ideology driven economics, like all revealed religions, consist mostly of prophecies.
Few, if any, ever come to pass.
Single payer countries are going bankrupt around the world.
Perhaps, but not as fast as the US as is demonstrated by the above data plot.
Mr. Perfect wrote:They can't blame tax cuts for the rich or military spending.
Non sequitur.
Mr. Perfect wrote:Making a population dependent on a government entity and then the government entity going bankrupt only ends one way. It's just math.
Of course. Who ever heard of a private corporation going bankrupt.
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Re: Universal Health Care Pro/Con

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