I see how the government works in most other areas, I don't think I want them messing with my health...
I see how Canada has this crap, and even though drugs are cheaper, wait time for surgery is much longer, forcing many to come to the US for treatment...
I guess we will have to add this to the list of liberal ideas that will negatively affect our country forever...
Short list:
1. Busing in the late 1960's and early 1970's. This destroyed all inner city public schools. Look at any data, when people were forced to be bussed around, all the white people left. So even though liberals were trying to desegregate schools...they made them permanently segregated and terrible.
2. Welfare...at least at this point they created a permanent underclass of helpless poor people...
3. The projects...those are all gone now...
and the list could go on and on
Monday, June 25, 2007
Senators push universal health care
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44 comments:
I see how Canada has this crap, and even though drugs are cheaper, wait time for surgery is much longer, forcing many to come to the US for treatment...
Look, if you make this argument, what you're saying is that it's better for a few lucky people to get top-notch health care than for everybody to get adequate care.
That argument strikes me as a non-starter. I don't get any healthier just because your knee was operated on by the nation's top orthopedist. Heck, you don't really get any healthier.
If you don't care about helping people - and it's pretty obvious that you don't - then why don't you make it about saving money? Universal health care would be a lot less expensive for you, for the same level of care, than the system we have now. It's astoundingly cheaper - taking advantage of economies of scale - to have the government "insure" everybody than to have private citizens fronting their own insurance.
It's complicated, to be sure; but the idea that national health care is a universal disaster just doesn't seem to be indicated by the facts. Every major industrial nation in the world has nationalized health care - except for us. The result is that among those countries, we have the highest rates of things like infant mortality. I think it's fair to wonder if, maybe, they know something we don't.
On the other hand - if you hate the poor and want them to die, and you hate having money too, then the current system we have is just perfect, isn't it?
"Every major industrial nation in the world has nationalized health care - except for us."
And most of them are smaller than the US. Hell, Canada has a smaller population than the state of California. The US can't even handle health care for veterans, let alone everyone in the country.
See, liberals like chet only see things by race, age and income level...
Man, I NEVER get tired of being correct...
And since chet cant control himself and has to use the race card and personal attacks, I will give him no response.
Oh, I forgot how later in my post I show how liberalism has destroyed the lives of pretty much every poor and minority person in the inner city, and he is mad that I am correct...
And most of them are smaller than the US.
I don't see what their geographical size has to do with anything. Sure, a smaller population has smaller health care needs; but they also have a smaller tax base to fund those needs.
And since chet cant control himself and has to use the race card and personal attacks
Where did I use the race card? I don't see any mention of anybody by race in my post.
Is it just your intention to lie about what I've said in order to avoid having to respond to my arguments?
Oh, I forgot how later in my post I show how liberalism has destroyed the lives of pretty much every poor and minority person in the inner city,
Wait, who's playing the race card, now?
Anyway I don't see where you did that. I see where you called a bunch of people names, and then said a bunch of stupid, easily-refuted nonsense about nationalized health care.
If it wasnt for the greedy ass liberal trial lawyers, like John Edwards, who sue the f@#k out of hospitals and doctors we wouldn't be in this mess!
So, next time you see an America hating liberal, thank them for supporting douche bags that love providing us with these asinine health care expenses!
If it wasnt for the greedy ass liberal trial lawyers, like John Edwards, who sue the f@#k out of hospitals and doctors we wouldn't be in this mess!
Medical malpractice claims constitute less than .5% of total medical spending in the US - and a recent comprehensive study at Harvard found that more than 90% of medical suits showed evidence of genuine malpractice. Indeed, another comprehensive survey found that American doctors injured nearly one in 25 patients.
So, once again, conservatives are totally wrong. Medical malpractice claims have essentially no effect on health care costs, and indeed, very, very few of those claims are at all frivolous.
Don't you guys look anything up before you talk about it?
chet--
Single-payer is an absolute disaster ***everywhere*** it is tried.
Why? With the government footing the bill, unlimited demand is created, which creates unlimited cost for the government unless one rations the service. This means long waiting times for serious treatment, jackasses in hospital beds that should be home, obsolescent technology -- why anyone would want to do this USSR stuff is beyond me.
Of course the United States is going to have lower life expectancy and higher mortality rates. That's because we have more fat people like Michael Moore, more firearm homicides, and more crackwhores having kids. You need to look at the data that counts -- specific treatments.
For example, if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, the mortality rate is 19% in the United States, while it is 44% in Germany, 49% in France, and 57% in the United Kingdom. Or take colon cancer-- 30% of Americans diagnosed with die from it, as opposed to 58% in France, 62% in New Zealand, and 74% in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer shows the same pattern: less than 25% of diagnosed American women will die from it, compared with 35% of French women, 46% of British women, and 46% of women from New Zealand.
You have to be fucking crazy if you want to recreate this disaster in the United States. Ironically, it was medicare and medicaid, along with Ted Kennedy's HMO Act of 1973, which screwed up the system so bad in the place.
Communism sucks!
in the first place, ahem.
With the government footing the bill, unlimited demand is created, which creates unlimited cost for the government unless one rations the service.
No offense, Jason, but this is the very argument that I rebutted in my first post. I don't see how top-notch care for few is better than adequate care for everybody. And I notice that you don't even try to explain.
I was unable to source your numbers, incidentally. The best figures I could find showed that the US and the UK were equal in terms of deaths from prostate cancer per 1000 males; you're actually less likely to die of breast cancer in France and Japan after being diagnosed than in the US; and the same for oral and pharyngeal cancers.
The numbers really don't support your contention, as far as I can see. Where did you get them, exactly?
You have to be fucking crazy if you want to recreate this disaster in the United States.
Even if your numbers weren't apparently BS, incrementally higher cancer mortality rates don't strike me as something that constitutes a "disaster." On the other hand, the system we have now - where costs skyrocket even as less and less people receive the same level of care - strikes me as being on the road to one.
chet--
The entire point of healthcare is to provide top-notch care for the few, not the many. That is because the few are sick, while the many are the healthy. I don't want a system like New Zealand, where if you have renal failure and you're over 75, you are not allowed to be accepted medical care for this. This is involuntary euthanasia, and I source my claim in Colin M. Feek et al., "Experience with Rationing Care in New Zealand," British Medical Journal 318, no. 7194 (May 15, 1999): 1346-48.
I also don't want people with minor illnesses taking up hospital beds when the waiting list is about 800,000 people long for hospital entry, like the UK's NHS. This fact is common knowledge. Google it.
Did you know Britain's NHS cancels 50,000 operations a year because of shortages? Over 40% of Britain's cancer patients never get to see an oncology specialist. The annual rate of cancer death in the United Kingdom is 70% higher than in the United States. (Nick Bosanquet, "A Successful NHS: From Aspiration to Delivery," Adam Smith Institute, 1999, 10)
My prostate and breast cancer statistics come from Gerard F. Anderson and Peter S. Hussey, "Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data," Commonwealth Fund, October 2000.
This data is relevant because saving lives is, uh, the raison d'etre for healthcare. Technology matters too. The United States has three times per capita the amount of MRI machines than Canada. In Canada you have to wait months to get an MRI, which is outrageous. And since they have single-payer, it is often illegal for you to pay for it yourself.
Why are people being priced out of healthcare? Because government underwrites almost 50% of the bills today in the United States. If you don't know government swamping the market like this creates higher premiums for individuals in the higher sector, I am more than happy to explain it to you.
Socialism is the cancer, and capitalism is the cure.
Here's a source for the waiting list in the United Kingdom from the Marxist periodical Guardian Unlimited, hardly a bastion of free market capitalism.
Note--
I did read your links. The black line is the United States in the data you provided, right? And with the BBC article, the expert claimed,
"Professor Gordon McVie, CRC director general, said the reason is that more cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in the US - therefore more people are successfully treated."
That is the entire point. You don't get even diagnosed if you are waiting in the queue forever.
Why did I write higher sector? LOL! Well, I guess the private sector is the higher sector. ;)
I see how Canada has this crap
You haven't read the plan, have you? The WHI is nothing like Canada's plan. Not even the least bit close.
If you don't even know what you're talking about, you shouldn't be posting in the first-place.
I read stories from the UK and Canada, and I'll be damned if I am going to let liberals ruin health care on my watch...
Your track record is pathetic, your ideas never work, and I'm sick and tired of having to just "deal" with all the crap you have created with your failed liberal programs...
Its time for someone to put their foot down, and that foot is me
Chet, etal,
There's no doubt that problems with our current healthcare system exist. Your basic argument seems to be "the have's have while the have not's don't" (although if you were to check out Jason's blog you'd realize the "have not's don't" is not entirely true, check it out if you dare!).
Do you really want the gov't who handled Katrina, who's given us the inner city, that gave us the current public school system in charge of health care?
I'm going to partially quote Scott Shore here:
We can either ration health care or deliver universal second-rate health care. These are, in fact, the only viable options. With limited dollars and a universal “entitlement,” somebody -- politicians in the case of government -- will have to decide who gets how much health care and the quality of the care. Should Parkinson’s patients get more access to the system than Alzheimer’s patients? What about cardiac patients? How much for heart failure, valve problems or heart attacks? How much money is set aside for various types of cancer patients? Should money be allocated by the severity of sickness or the chance of cure? Should society determine the economic value of different patients -- for example a breadwinner for six would get more money than a single person? If we establish a standard for age should we favor the young (who have many more years of life) or the old (who need care chronically)? What procedures get preference? Do we use the most economical (serve the most people) or the most effective (fewer patients but better outcomes) procedures? Should social outcasts, “unproductive” artists, non-taxpayers or those with a criminal record be at the bottom of the priority list for health care? In essence, we have given enormous power of choice over our lives and body to the State. Some government sponsored “Medical Board” will choose Life and Death for its citizens? Is this really what the leftist, civil liberties crowd wants?? To this writer the whole system sounds ghoulish and ripe with opportunity for favored access to the politically connected. Is political influence or politically determined disease-priorities a better means of rationing health care than private insurance or tax write-offs of a reasonable sum in a Health Security Account?
Will the whole healthcare system become a metaphor of a UNIVERSAL SEATBELT? What if people choose not to follow the directions of their appointed doctors? Will the government pay for homeopathy, aromatherapy, reiki…? If not, why not? Who determines what medicine is “official” and what medicine is not permitted? If the AMA decides that homeopathy is quackery (and against their financial interests) does that suggest that the beneficiary of universal health care is involved in reckless behavior? Should the taxpayers pay for reckless behavior? If an overweight person has been warned three times to go to a diet clinic or lose a certain number of pounds and does not, are we responsible to pay for his or her diabetes treatment? Are smokers covered under the system? It would seem to me that a tax-funded program justifies the intrusion of the taxpayers through the government into the habits of all Americans. The real ugly truth is that the very wealthiest Americans will opt out of this monstrous system and the country will have two distinct classes of healthcare.
No, I agree with Jason, capitalism is the only answer. If we do away with the current socialist policies in medicine and pharmaceuticals, inact better incentives for health care savings accounts, keep the "safety net" for the uninsured, we can continue to have the "bestest" most sought "afterest" healthcare system in the world.
Chet,
I just have to add one more thing.
I've got two uncles aged 66 and 73.
They both earned about the same amount of money in their lifetimes.
The 73 year old saved money his whole life, retirement, investments, etc., did without and lived frugally. The 66 year old lived life to its fullest. Spent his money as fast as he earned it.
The 73 y.o. has good health insurance and is looking at several more years with his family.
The 66 year old is in and out of emergency rooms, is getting decent care, but it's not looking too good.
We as a family, have many more colorful tales to tell about the 66 y.o. But we hopefully have many more years to create tales about the 73 y.o.
Who in the hell do you think you are to claim it's not fair that one has superior care to the other?
The poor are going to get basic health care, no matter what system we're under. But to inact socialist health care is to destroy the benefits of planning ahead. Which it always does. Yah see, the people that claim to support your point of view will say its not fair that one may get better care than the other.
Yes, it's hard to swallow that a person born to wealth, or a person that scrimps, saves, and creates wealth is favored over others, but you know what? There will always be the haves and have nots no matter what system we're under. Let's at least try to award those whom have planned for it, and provide basic health care for those that haven't.
If we don't what's the alternative? Besides dragging everyone down to a lower level.
The entire point of healthcare is to provide top-notch care for the few, not the many.
Well, I disagree. Maybe you've never heard of "preventative medicine?" Healthy people have much to gain from health care, as well.
But the bigger reason your argument is specious is because the few that are sick and the few that can afford health care in America are not the same groups. The American system leaves a lot of people out in the cold. I'm still waiting for you to explain how that's a feature. What's the good of a health care structure that doesn't help the people who need it?
I'm not surprised, by the way, to see you using out of date information. Try more recent sources than 2000.
Your track record is pathetic, your ideas never work, and I'm sick and tired of having to just "deal" with all the crap you have created with your failed liberal programs...
Did you have an argument that substantiates that? Or did you just pop in here to pitch another tantrum?
Maybe, instead of stamping your feet, you could try to provide some reasoned argumentation that supports your views.
Do you really want the gov't who handled Katrina, who's given us the inner city, that gave us the current public school system in charge of health care?
I'd like the government that runs the Post Office to run the national health care system, actually.
We can either ration health care or deliver universal second-rate health care.
I'm not saying that's not true. What I keep asking, and what keeps getting ignored, is why you people all believe that the third, unlisted option - the one we have now, where very few people get top-notch care and many people get no care at all - is better than either of the first two options.
I don't see how it is. Universal adequate care - yes, with waiting and rationing and all the rest, even - still seems better than an elite few getting the best possible care and the rest getting none at all.
Where am I wrong about that?
Is political influence or politically determined disease-priorities a better means of rationing health care than private insurance or tax write-offs of a reasonable sum in a Health Security Account?
I'll ask you what I'd ask Scott - is personal wealth a better means of rationing health care than, say, actual need? Because that's where we're at, now. We ration the health care according to personal wealth.
The real ugly truth is that the very wealthiest Americans will opt out of this monstrous system and the country will have two distinct classes of healthcare.
Well, we already have two classes of healthcare. How would that be different?
I read stories from the UK and Canada, and I'll be damned if I am going to let liberals ruin health care on my watch...
Look, I'm not here to defend UK or Canada-style health care. If you think that's what the Senate Dems have proposed, then you're fighting the wrong battle.
If the Senate Dems' proposal makes it into law, Wisconsin health care will look nothing like Canada or the UK.
In fact, Wisconsin health care will look instead very much like the very successful state employees' plan, where everyone has choices of private insurance companies to buy their coverage from--and, consequently, choice about their own doctors and providers. No one at the state level will be rationing out care. No one at the state level will be dictating your actions.
If, Game, you think state employees right now are getting a crappy deal, then you might have something legitimate to gripe about. But if you keep saying that the WHI will be Canada or the UK, you only show you don't know what this is all about.
Jay, you must have trouble balancing your checkbook without George Soros' money to keep you in the black. You and Chet spend and spend, but you never identify the source of income for that spending. You both hate the rich, but you lap up proposals from the very rich you hate. Show me where your proposals will bankrupt the rich, especially rich Democrats like Warren Buffet, George Soros, the Kennedy family, Teresa Heinz Kerry,... You can't because all the Democrat proposals do is bankrupt the middle class and make them dependant on the Government for everything, which is enslavement to the government.
Chet,
If you believe our system has "many people who get no care at all”, you're sadly mistaken.
I guess it depends on how you define “many”. The only Americans that receive “no care at all” are those that choose not to receive care.
If you believe our system has "many people who get no care at all”, you're sadly mistaken.
I guess it depends on how you define “many”.
According to the National Institute of Medicine, 18,000 Americans die each year of conditions that could have been treated, had they been insured. In addition to the 48 million Americans who have no insurance at all, an additional 31 million are underinsured, meaning that they don't have adequate insurance to cover catastrophic medical issues.
I don't know. Do you think that's enough to count as "many?" Personally even one person denied lifesaving treatment because they couldn't afford it is too many.
You can't because all the Democrat proposals do is bankrupt the middle class and make them dependant on the Government for everything, which is enslavement to the government.
If government isn't supposed to do things for us, what is it for, then? What's the point in paying even a little bit for a completely useless government?
It would cost the taxpayers less to institute national health care - because of economies of scale - than we pay now for medical entitlements. So I don't see that the money has to come from anywhere that it isn't already. What bankrupts the middle class, PCD, is the fact that health insurance for an average middle class family costs around $10,000.
Chet,
Your 43 million is a piece of whole cloth. When I find the break down of that number, you should feel foolish, but you are too much of a "true believing" hack to admit you are trying to pull a fast one.
First of all, subtract 12 million illegals from that number. Then Subtract the number of people on Title 19. Next subtract the number of people who choose not to buy health insurance because they are young and healthy.
That number of uninsured gets pretty small pretty fast when you stop lumping in all the people you can to make a big alarming number to frignten people with.
Chet,
The following statements made by you are false (I suspect that’s why you modified your position) -
why you people all believe that the third, unlisted option - the one we have now, where very few people get top-notch care and many people get no care at all - is better than either of the first two options.
…an elite few getting the best possible care and the rest getting none at all.
Further more, you need to dig deeper on two of your main points that use misleading statistics.
1. Do a little research into who comprises “people with no or inadequate insurance.” You’ll be surprised.
2. The total cost of medical malpractice goes way beyond the .5% of med spending you quoted. Think about it.
Finally I’m speechless just contemplating how many people may agree with your question: If government isn't supposed to do things for us, what is it for, then?
you are too much of a "true believing" hack to admit you are trying to pull a fast one.
Heh.
Sheriff Lee Baca is a Republican, PCD
Your 43 million is a piece of whole cloth.
Since I didn't say "43 million", I'd have to agree with you. You'd look a lot less ridiculous if you could stick to refuting my arguments as I've made them, as opposed to the numbers and arguments you're just making up.
43 million isn't a number that appears anywhere in my message. Try again, please.
First of all, subtract 12 million illegals from that number.
They're not included in that number.
Then Subtract the number of people on Title 19.
I don't know what you mean by "on Title 19." Not being a lawyer, I don't know the US Code by title numbers.
Next subtract the number of people who choose not to buy health insurance because they are young and healthy.
How many people is that? I can't subtract an unknown number.
And why exclude them? They're uninsured, by definition.
The following statements made by you are false (I suspect that’s why you modified your position) -
I haven't modified my position, yet. If you can provide some evidence, I'd be happy to, but to my knowledge I'm advancing the same main points I started with. I suspect you're just leveling spurious accusations.
Furthermore - it's imcumbent upon you to actually prove that those are false statements, as opposed to just saying that they are. I really have no reason to take your word for it.
The total cost of medical malpractice goes way beyond the .5% of med spending you quoted.
No, it doesn't. I have a sense you're about to assert that medical malpractice claims drive up premiums for malpractice insurance, but economists have found that that's just not true. There's really been little connection between the number of malpractice suits and the price of malpractice insurance. For instance, in a year when such suits declined by about 10%, premiums went up nearly 40%.
Medical malpractice suits have nothing to do with the price of health care. Your assertions are false.
Finally I’m speechless just contemplating how many people may agree with your question: If government isn't supposed to do things for us, what is it for, then?
Might I suggest you consider your speechlessness a sign that there's no good argument against what I said? It may indeed shock you how many people consider the purpose of government to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. Like, for instance, the Founding Fathers.
chet--
"It would cost the taxpayers less to institute national health care"
Government run healthcare reduces the percentage of GDP spent because they do it by denying services, along with putting people in the queue for months on end for simple things like MRI scans. You say you are against denying people services, therefore rationing is not the way we want to go. Healthcare is a normal good, which means the more money you have, the more a person will be willing to spend on it. There is nothing perverse about this.
"Universal adequate care - yes, with waiting and rationing and all the rest, even - still seems better than an elite few getting the best possible care and the rest getting none at all."
One, the rich and the powerful all get the jump the queue in all of the socialist countries while the working people wait in line. Secondly, rationing means the healthy people are preferred care over the sick, which means the young are favored over the elderly.
Note that no one is arguing the system as it exists today is perfect. I am pointing out it is unequivocally superior to single-payer and managed competition. In addition, Medicare and Medicaid are directly responsible for the high premiums in the private sector.
Again, I argue that a system that cures people is better than one that cares for people. I'm not opposed to government in principle, but with respect to medicine, the costs of government intervention clearly outweigh the benefits.
The benefits of socialized medicine are clear. The routine stuff from strep throat to broken legs are taken care of at low or no costs.
The costs are also well documented-- insanely long waiting lists for operations, higher mortality rates for specific diseases, along with slowing the development of new technologies and treatments to a halt.
jay--
Managed competition, or HillaryCare, is almost as bad as single-payer. It operates under fascist principles of uniting corporate power with government power, rather than the socialist principle of just giving all the power to the government. Ralph Nader calls it No Insurance Company And CEO Left Behind Care, and for good reason.
Government run healthcare reduces the percentage of GDP spent because they do it by denying services
Denying services - to the uninsured and underinsured - is where we're at, now. I don't believe any serious person believes that less people will be covered under a national program than are covered now. I'd like to see some evidence of that, I guess.
Secondly, rationing means the healthy people are preferred care over the sick, which means the young are favored over the elderly.
That's one way to ration. Is the way we're rationing it now - by favoring the wealthy - better than that? I've been asking you to substantiate that argument now for two days. Any reason you're having trouble doing that?
I am pointing out it is unequivocally superior to single-payer and managed competition.
You're asserting that. You haven't even tried to prove it with anything but out-of-date numbers and bald assertions.
Do you have any evidence that it's superior? If it's so superior, why are we the only nation with it? If it's so superior why are Americans so much less healthy than other industrialized nations? In what sense is it superior for the Americans who get no treatment at all?
The costs are also well documented-- insanely long waiting lists for operations, higher mortality rates for specific diseases, along with slowing the development of new technologies and treatments to a halt.
The government already funds the vast majority of medical research in the US. I don't see why that would change under nationalized health care. The idea that profit motives drive medical research in this country is just absurd - pharmaceutical companies spend less than 2% of their profits (or about that) on R&D.
The majority of research happens with public money at public institutions. Why on Earth would that change?
chet--
I've given plenty of evidence that American healthcare is superior. I've presented differences in mortality rates, information on waiting times, and statistics about how we have far greater access to technology per capita in the United States than elsewhere. The data matters. For example, a2000 article in the journal Clinical Oncology, British researchers studying 29 lung cancer patients waiting for treatment further found that about 20 percent "of potentially curable patients became incurable on the waiting list. Here is a study showing how waiting in line in the Swedish system increases their mortality. This article from the Mackinac Institute shows how America has several times more per capita of open heart surgery centers, MRI units, lithotripsy centers, CT scanners, and cardiac catherization centers. I'm not sure how much evidence I have to provide to convince you.
Being placed on a government waiting list where they might get to you in a few months, if at all, is **not** "healthcare access." Being forbidden by leftist politicians to pay for a service yourself when the government refuses to provide it immediately, as in Canada, is simply criminal.
Claiming only the wealthy get healthcare in America is intensely stupid. Assuming we should take the 43 million uninsured number at face value, over 85% Americans today are covered. My grandfather lives in a trailer park, and needed an angioplasty last January. He got it done immediately. This doesn't happen in the socialist countries.
Now let us look at the 43 million uninsured. According to the U.S. Census bureau, 17 million of them living in households with over $50,000 in annual income, with 9 million of these living in households that make over $75,000 a year. Then there are 18 million people between the ages of 18-34 who don't have health insurance. As a group, they spend much more on things like alcohol and eating out than they do on out of pocket health expenses. There are 14 million people eligible for medicaid who don't enroll-- hell, if you can use the emergency room for free, and take advantage of free clinics, why bother? Then we have 12 million illegal immigrants. When the overlap is subtracted out, analysts have found that only 8 million in America are truly uninsured at any moment in time. In other words, most of the population is fine, and those that aren't are free to exploit the robust safety net.
There are many ways to reform healthcare. Single-payer is a disaster, and Jay's proposal if he wishes to defend it, is a step up, but not much better.
chet--
Americans do not live as long as people in other industrialized countries because of obesity and firearm homicide. For example, almost a quarter of Americans are obese, while in France the number is about 5-6%. The homicide rate in the United States is 5.5 per 100,000, while it is only 1.4 in the UK and 1.1 in Germany.
Certainly you aren't suggesting single-payer will make Michael Moore eat less food, or prevent murders.
chet--
Lastly, I fact checked your claim about the government footing the bill for medical research.
"Industry is picking up about 57% of the tab for medical investigation, with the National Institutes of Health kicking in another 28%." That is according to The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Man, I love the internet.
Blamin:
The poor are going to get basic health care, no matter what system we're under. But to inact socialist health care is to destroy the benefits of planning ahead.
So it's not enough to succeed, others must suffer? It's not enough that Uncle 1 gets to live; Uncle 2 has to die?
Are you putting me on, or what?
I've given plenty of evidence that American healthcare is superior.
Certainly not in this thread. I've refuted every piece of evidence you've presented.
and statistics about how we have far greater access to technology per capita in the United States than elsewhere.
One example of MRI machines is what you presented. What do you think is going to happen under single-payer? MRI machines are going to magically evaporate? That's pretty stupid.
I'm not sure how much evidence I have to provide to convince you.
You're trying to convince me of something I haven't disputed. Yes, the elite get top-notch care. Everybody else gets squat.
How is that a superior system to everybody getting adequate care? How many times have I asked you that?
Why do you insist on being so evasive?
Being placed on a government waiting list where they might get to you in a few months, if at all, is **not** "healthcare access."
It's unfortunate, but how is it better than never being on the list at all? How is waiting a few months worse than waiting forever?
Being forbidden by leftist politicians to pay for a service yourself when the government refuses to provide it immediately, as in Canada, is simply criminal.
I don't see why we need to outlaw private practice completely - and it isn't in Canada, incidentally. You must be working from old information, again.
Assuming we should take the 43 million uninsured number at face value, over 85% Americans today are covered.
You might want to check the math on that. (It's 48 million, incidentally. I guess you guys don't read too closely.) 48 million + 31 million divided by 300 million = more than 26% of Americans without enough insurance to receive adequate health care.
I think that's too many. Convince me that it's not. I've been asking for nothing else for 30 posts now.
Certainly you aren't suggesting single-payer will make Michael Moore eat less food, or prevent murders.
Actually I think there's a very good case to be made that better health coverage would decrease obesity. After all it's not like the French diet has any less saturated fat and calories than the American diet. (Have you ever been there? There's butter in everything.)
Lastly, I fact checked your claim about the government footing the bill for medical research.
You've overlooked - because you picked the wrong source - how much of that research is happening in public research institutions compared to how much happens in private labs. About 80% of the nation's research occurs in public institutions (like universities.)
My claim is basically correct, in other words. The government is the biggest source of biomedical research in the country, and there's no reason to believe that would change. It certainly hasn't in Europe.
Chet, you are fount of spin and misinformation. You take as gospel unknowable numbers and spout made up numbers to support your fantasy.
Start proving your remarks with more than your own remarks.
Chet, you are fount of spin and misinformation.
Two words for you, PCD - prove it.
You can make all the personal attacks you want - they just prove how right I am. If you could address my arguments on their merit, you'd have done so by now.
When it comes down to it, personal attacks are all that conservatives have to offer. That's why I abandoned conservativism - there's just nothing there, intellectually. The whole movement is about being a bully and browbeating your opponents - as PCD abundantly proves.
Chet, you are a liar about EVER being a conservative. I strongly doubt you were ever in the GOP, except as a RINO or a temporary Dem election change to vote in a GOP only election.
Second, your arguments are full of holes and when shown your falsehoods, you move on to other subjects and ignore being rebutted.
You think you are being browbeaten? You are an expert at trying to pull that yourself.
chet--
I ask you, what evidence could I possibly provide that would change your mind? I have a lot more of it, but if you are set in your ways, I'm not going to bother with another long post.
Most Americans are insured, even by the way you slice it. Hence, you cannot say that only the elite have access to top notch medical care and expect any rational person to believe this. My grandfather who lives in a trailer park receives top notch medical care. And those who are not insured still get access in emergency rooms, including illegal immigrants. That is federal law.
We agree that high premiums are a problem. Government intervention in the healthcare market, and not corporate greed, is the mechanism responsible.
I'm arguing that the market creates access to new technology. It is not an accident that patients have more access to advanced technology in the United States than in other countries, which have frequent shortages of hospital beds.
Under a single-payer system, as in Canada, government is not running the system, only financing it. To control costs such systems ration by putting people on waiting lists. Being put on a waiting list increases your probability of death, which is why the socialist countries have higher mortality rates.
I ask you, what evidence could I possibly provide that would change your mind?
Evidence that the national health care systems of countries like France, Sweden, etc. are disasters, and that the people of those countries are clamoring to dismantle them entirely and adopt the US "system" (if we can even call what we have a system). But the reverse seems true - people in the US - where we invariably come out on the bottom in terms of quality of care, access, infant mortality, etc - clamor for what they have.
Even in Britain, even with all the problems of the NHS, there's a nearly-universal political consensus that universal health care is a necessity.
That doesn't sound like a disaster to me. Even a slight uptick in cancer mortality rates or waiting times for non-essential surgeries doesn't strike me as "catastrophic."
It is not an accident that patients have more access to advanced technology in the United States than in other countries, which have frequent shortages of hospital beds.
That's true - for the people who have access.
For the people with no access, that somebody else gets top-notch care is completely irrelevant. And I still don't understand how top-notch care for some is better than adequate care for all.
Being put on a waiting list increases your probability of death, which is why the socialist countries have higher mortality rates.
There are no "socialist" countries.
chet--
Your line of reasoning is this. You believe only 75% of people can afford cars. Therefore, everyone should be forced to drive only a Trabant for the next few decades.
We will have to agree to disagree about this. I want the system that rapidly introduces new technologies and does a better job keeping people alive. You want a system where broken legs are treated for free, while the people who need serious treatment go in the queue.
Again, since healthy people are the majority, a majority of people will like the single-payer system, since the majority, who are healthy, would be able to regular check ups and medicines for colds for free, a step up from paying insurance bills. But *your* system is the one that discriminates against the poor, the elderly, and the seriously ill, all who suffer the most under rationing.
I would rather keep the system we have now, and lower premiums by reforming our tax policy, liberalizing health savings accounts, reforming medicaid along the lines of welfare, and changing the way medicare payments are made.
You believe only 75% of people can afford cars. Therefore, everyone should be forced to drive only a Trabant for the next few decades.
If that's what it takes for everyone to get to work, I don't see why the alternative is better. It isn't even free-er.
France appears to have a system, though, where handing out Trabants doesn't appear to harm your ability to buy a Ferrari, if you want.
You want a system where broken legs are treated for free, while the people who need serious treatment go in the queue.
Because I believe - and the evidence appears to show - that that's the system that does keep the most people alive. When people are covered, they go in for preventative care. That reduces the incidence and severity of disease - as well as costs.
But *your* system is the one that discriminates against the poor, the elderly, and the seriously ill, all who suffer the most under rationing.
The poor? No system could discriminate against the poor more than the system we have now, where the poor recieve substandard care - or no care - and pay ten or a hundred times more out of pocket for the same care compared to the wealthy insured. Getting a prescription for cold medicine might cost the insured $50. For the uninsured, who have to go to the ER, it might cost $500 (and a five-eight hour wait).
Tell me how that's less discriminatory against the poor than a system like France.
I would rather keep the system we have now, and lower premiums by reforming our tax policy, liberalizing health savings accounts
I can't imagine anything more ridiculous than a "health savings account." You act like it's illegal to have savings accounts, for starters; but what happens when your medical bills exceed your savings account?
There's a question I can never get conservatives to answer.
Damn Chester,
I’d think someone who’s as knowledgeable as you, would know all about health care savings accounts.
Simply put, a person gets a high deductible, no frills, policy and puts the difference (from an all bells attached, low deductible policy) plus a little more if they wish, in a savings account, to be used to pay deductibles or on a new sofa (or whatever), if not used.
I know this gives people a little more “say-so” over there own lives, which socialist avoid like the plague, and defeats the real purpose of socialized medicine, but people of all political persuasions seem to like it, go figure!
Are you really that stupid? When you exceed your Medical Saving Acct, you pay out of pocket.
The medical savings account is out of pocket.
So what you're saying is, the conservative plan for health coverage is that there is no coverage, and if you don't have the personal assets to cover your bills, you don't get treatment.
Why the hell don't you guys just come out and say that? Why hide behind nonsense "medical savings accounts?"
Simply put, a person gets a high deductible, no frills, policy and puts the difference (from an all bells attached, low deductible policy) plus a little more if they wish, in a savings account, to be used to pay deductibles or on a new sofa (or whatever), if not used.
So they're just regular savings accounts.
Which people can already get. How exactly is this a plan?
I know this gives people a little more “say-so” over there own lives
I don't see how this gives them anything. People can already have savings accounts. They can already pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses, if they want (and if their pockets are deep enough.)
It's astounding to me that you guys think medical savings accounts solve anything or are different in any way from what we have now. I guess there's a very good reason that nobody who takes this issue seriously supports medical savings accounts.
I’d think someone who’s as knowledgeable as you, would know all about health care savings accounts.
I had assumed, since you guys were pushing this as a solution, that there was something in the plan that I wasn't hearing that would actually solve problems. Some magic step that actually addresses the issue that it's really easy to incur medical expenses that are far beyond your ability to pay.
As it turned out, I guess I already knew everything there was to know - medical savings accounts don't solve anything, they're just a way for conservatives to ignore the problems of other people. Another intellectually bankrupt conservative idea. Congratulations, guys. If you just didn't give a damn about people who couldn't pay the bills for their expensive illnesses, why the hell didn't you just come out and say so?
Jason said,
"Government run healthcare reduces the percentage of GDP spent because they do it by denying services,"
And the US health insurance companies make huge profits by doing the exact same thing, do they not?
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