Topic: . - page 28. (Read 46178 times)

The problem is that US healthcare costs have been analysed.  The drivers are well understood.  Your response is "Those facts are on Google - I refuse to accept them."  

Can you see why that might seem an odd basis for arguing your position?  I can't debate a policy with you because, sadly, I do rely on facts.

I didn't say that all facts were bogus.  I just pointed out the rather obvious problem that a google search can present seriously flawed results.  Your use of google is illustrative of that.   Suppose you were interested in the functioning of milk secretion in the female breast.  Try googling 'breast'.

Good luck with that one!

The upward spiral of costs in the US is not due to patents for drug and medical device mfts - there are exceptions to this, yes.  

Some new cancer drugs can cost 10,000USD per month.  Those would be eliminated by the 'death panels', but they are the drugs which later will be cheap and highly effective.  

Suggesting that the government can control health care costs is to accept less efficiency in innovation.

A large part of our excessive health care costs is due to first and secondary effects of lawsuit abuse.  Another part of the spiraling costs is essentially a fiction and is the result of compelled socialism.  For example, hospitals must accept patients whether or not they have insurance.  Hospitals then jack up the prices charged to people with insurance to compensate for the costs of those who do not have insurance.

States bordering Mexico have yet other issues related to large numbers of people crossing into the US for medical care since if they present at the hospital they are provided service.

Proposing that any federal government or business take on additional work and responsibility when their checkbook is already overdrawn is illogical.  Yet that is what the entire Obamacare thing is really about.  Giving people something 'for free' from the government.  Sounds good, but has to be paid for somehow....

With the greatest respect, if you have decided that all the facts available on the subject are bogus, then I can't see how your policy ideas have value. 

A large advertising budget would work in the USA for sway opinion, but not well enough to overcome the badness of our current system.  

I do not think the citizens of the UK are as easy swayed by advertising as the citizens of the USA.  Maybe that is just because I am a cynical American.

The numbers of the quality and outcomes of health care in the UK back up the perception that the system is better or at least comparable in the UK.  

Because there is a difference between health care and health insurance.  The health insurance system in the US is broken.  However, if you do have insurance, or can otherwise pay the costs yourself, the US has the highest rate of health care access and the highest health care quality for the middle class of any nation in the world.  The proof is in the pudding, as the wealthy still come to the US to get care when things get serious; although that's probably going to change.  Can I get cheaper care for common problems in other nations?  Yes, that's provablely true.  But for cutting edge care, historically speaking, that's the US.  I, personally, have a degenerative disease.  Entirely incurable.  Unless I die bungie jumping, snow skiing, or crossing the street; it will kill me.  It's killed my grandmother, my uncle and my father.  My life expectancy is, however, a good 10 years longer in the US than anywhere in the world.  It's also not covered at all by any national health care system in the world.  (which has much to do with the discrepancy in life expectancy)  Honestly, it's not covered by any form of health insurance that I've found here either; and I'm entirely ineligble for life insurance.  However, I don't have that kind of insurance.  I have a health savings account, so I'm basicly self-insured pre-tax.  I, and I alone, decide whether that money will be used to extend my lifespan for a little longer, or become an inherited asset for my children.


It wouldn't surprise me either, but again, you're talking about health insurance not health care.  I would agree that every American should have access to health care.  No one should be denied critical care, but no American should be taxed to pay for the poor life choices that leads them to lung cancer (smoking) or diabeties (over eating), nor should anyone be compelled to help pay for my, rather expensive, hospice care when my turn comes.  I lost the genetic lottery, and rather than have more blood children, my wife & I have chosen to adopt.  My eldest son might be just as screwed as me, but my younger sons are not my blood children.  My brother has chosen to eat himself to death before the family curse catches up with him.

Again, I can solve this grand dilemma in 5 minutes.  Simply make any form of health care that was available to the very richest 30, 40 or 50 years ago tax deductible, as well as paying for same for others a corporate tax deduction.  Hell, make anything that was available just 15 years ago, as a recognized form or health care, tax deductible.  Sure, we'd have thousands of people in cali deducting yoga classes and weekend trips to the spa, but we'd have corporations willing to support free clinics and religious institutions sponsoring non-profit hospitals again.  If profit was the problem, then return to the age when health care insurance wasn't a benefit that employers used to attract middle class professionals.  Return to the age that Jewish hospitals paid to train the skilled and devout, rather than just the skilled and well funded.

I do not think that I have been defending the US system as better.  

Rather I see additional socialist inputs to the US system as making it far worse than it is presently.

More importantly I see it as a futile exercise in spending money which we don't have.  Such things are not based on reality and come to bad ends.

You mean to say, the UK health care system has a good sized advertizing budget?  Good for you.   The US does not have an advertising budget for a national health care system to convince people how wonderful their health care system is.  Once we do have that in  place, I am sure that our people will also report how wonderful their health care system is.

See any little problem with that?

Most analytics show differences but no clear advantage of health outcomes.   It is quite clear that the UK system is much less expensive. 

Now if you ask the USERS of the heath systems, the overwhelming sentiment in the UK is they are quite happy with their system.  Ask the same question in the USA and you will not get that answer. 

The UK system is far less expensive and has a much higher percentage of satisfaction. 


The problem with the US system currently is that it is NOT capitalistic NOR is it socialist.  It is the most unholy marriage of the worst components of both. 

It is not implemented as a fine, it is done as a tax.  Basically it goes to your tax return, you get less if you were to get a refund, you owe more if you do not get a refund.

MoonShadow, Spendulus, why are you defending the US system as better, if it is so broken? Maybe the UK one is better after all, just because all their costs are managed, haggled on, and taken care of internally, even if the final customer doesn't see it, while in US the system is so screwed up and convoluted that neither the final customers, nor the participants, know what the hell is going on and what is actually being charged? It wouldn't surprise me at all if we were overpaying for medical treatment and supplies, and in turn overpaying for insurance, simply because the majority of those expenses are hidden from us due to employers covering the rest of it.

Yeah, but if we have to pay anyway, that's way cheaper than having to support some snotty brats.

My opinion is that it would be way, way worse in the US, the reason being that Big Pharm and Big Hospital would be using "single payer" to bleed every one of us dry.  That's no different than they are doing with Obamacare except for the exceptions and the penalty stuff. 

That does not say that in some other country in other circumstances, that single payer would not work.  IIRC the first case of social medical insurance was in Germany in the years leading up to the Weimer Republic hyperinflation.

Well that didn't turn out too well.

It's not a basic problem if I distrust governments and their  numbers.  It's a basic SOLUTION.

And your method is open to question - you are actually saying "I read it on the Internet so it must be true."

Really?

would single payer be better or worse than this shit? i actually don't know.

Well its a basic problem if _all_ organisations that come up when you search on Google say the US spends twice as much as the UK on healthcare for inferior results and your response is "I've looked at them in the past and been quite dubious about their methodology and interpretations."  Really if you are dubious about facts, how can you possibly have an opinion on policy?  Or is your political view independent of al contact with facts?

The business model is severely flawed.  We all know it's not going to work, the question is what happens as this becomes a topic of political conversation.  After creating the problem through their idiocy, the liberals will seek to "solve it" by arguing that the problem is that we don't have single payer.  They'll argue it's the "dirty capitalist insurance companies" and the "filthy rich" that are the problem.

They'll argue yet again with another pack of lies for more of yesterday's tired, worn out socialist agendas.

The pages from about 10-18 in this document will show you exactly what your penalty will be for not following the rules.  For me, the penalty is less than the latest INCREASE in my insurance plan....

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41331.pdf

Most of those references I've looked at them in the past and been quite dubious about their methodology and interpretations.  I basically do not believe assertions by governments or operations such as the IMF, WHO, or any other operation which exists to push it's agendas.  PBS is always pushing political agendas.

BTW, The intro to the Olypmics by Great Britian, little skit-on-the-stage about health care, was ridiculous political pandering.

Having said that, I buy prescription medicines from outside the US and have them shipped in because they are cheaper.  But this says nothing except I wish to buy where I wish to buy.  If I have that ability I can't see why it matters that one place has prices higher than another.  That would be like saying we should care if there are sellers on ebay with high prices.  We don't care.

In certain cases I know why medical procedures are more expensive in the USA.  For example, routine investigative biopsy before surgery for cancer.  We do it better than you do, and that costs more.  In other cases US health care costs are out of line.  Here any and all attempts to move health care control to Washington DC (District of Criminals) will result in incredible bungling and higher costs.

And people are finding out right now about the higher costs.  I would think though instead of assuming that there are comparables between British health care and those in the US that you might want to consider the actual issues being discussed here, which more resemble the Irish being crushed for the benefit of London than anything else.  Here it may be something like tax on the farmers of Iowa to support medical care in Chicago.

Please - lets debate ideas not facts.  Let me google it for you.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=us+health+outcomes+vs.+world&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=24FjUvrPI-PA0QWwlYCoBw

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/26/21-graphs-that-show-americas-health-care-prices-are-ludicrous/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.html

Why bother going on pasting links?  Either you accept that there is a real world where the US health system is a monstrous waste of money or you are inventing a dream world to support some fantasy ideology.

i think the individual mandate is ridiculous and frankly i don't know how it will work when they start dishing out fines. it's not gonna be pretty.