Topic: Health Care (split from I am very confused.) (Read 4538 times)

Health Care is so important and i find it unbelievable that their are still countries without a proper public health care system. Seems like you guys in the US have to rely on natural supplements like Kanna: https://liftmode.com/blog/kanna-high-weed/
Am i correct? I mean natural supplements are certainly not a bad thing, but having to rely on them completely is scary to me.

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Only those who consider you as a family will be the one give a damn to help you.

I'm not sure why everyone keeps insisting I didn't write this.


You don't seem to be disagreeing with me at all.


Again, you don't seem to be saying anything different from me. If people get sick, we care for them. Period.



*Why* you want to care for the sick is unimportant to me. It is nice that you care though. So do I.



Again, people get sick. People get care. The responsibility of payment for services rendered should be settled afterward.


I am not that cruel. However, you quite clearly pointed out that you do indeed know that others ARE that cruel!


I know you italicized "my", but in reality these people are not leaching off "your" labor. They are leaching off "everyone's" labor. And conversely, they are paying nothing but lip service to the fact that the "mentally retarded or physically handicapped" aren't being cared for.

If you ask these leaches to get a job and pay their fair share to help the "mentally retarded or physically handicapped" what do you expect their response to be? How in all sanity can you expect to convince them that they are "entitled" not to pay for their own care, BUT they are *required* to pay for other's care? If you can indeed make that case, I will bow down and worship everything you write.


But obviously you can't, because rhetorically you think those people should be locked up. Locked up but well cared for it seems. I guess that is slightly more reasonable than dowsing these folks in gasoline and setting them on fire.

But I myself am not so cruel.


You can not fix a system, without fixing the people who make up the system. There is a fix. It is called personal responsibility.

Pretty bloody tough these days.  And housing costs are ridiculous in the major cities, whether you're looking at buying or renting.  Electricity costs have sky-rocketed here too over the last few years and those two factors combined have a definite impact on most people's standard of living.

Places like Australia have a multi-tiered system. We have private as well as public hospitals and you can access health services through government health insurance, private health insurance or even self-pay.  We do have resort like private hospitals, but we don't have the population to support those private hospitals being tertiary care facilities even in our most populous cities.  That's why the major trauma centres and tertiary care units are all located at public hospitals - which are free to everyone (even if you're privately insured, you're not obligated to use your insurance at a public hospital or when you see a private doctor).  

Many public hospitals now private hospitals on the same grounds which means that if you have private insurance or are prepared to pay out of pocket and you don't need to be in a high dependency unit, you can opt for more luxurious accommodation during your stay.  Our private health insurance is cheaper because everyone is already insured at a basic level by the government so private insurers are only covering the "gap" between the fee for service and the government rebate.

There's nothing to stop primary care doctors here charging whatever they like for a consultation - it's just that the patient will have to cover the difference between their fee and the health insurance (government or private) rebate.  

Our system probably wouldn't scale well to somewhere with a population the size of the US.

Healthcare should be not for profit. Health insurance should also be not for profit. Do you really need your kidney removed or does the doctor need to make a boat payment? That doesn't mean that you can't have hospitals and doctors that demand millions in compensation if there is a market for their talent. They can even have cash only hospitals with gold faucets and 7 star chefs preparing their soups and jello.

Exactly! A government is too big to fail. That is why it should have as little power as necessary. Because indeed it will fail. When smaller organizations fail we a glad to be rid of them and others step into take their place.

When governments fail, like I said earlier "community" is always important. But this time it is the European Community they have to rely in to step up and help. There is no world safety net to fall back on if Greece happened to be a bad neighbor.

Every government in history has been corrupted. When you have a monopoly on force there is no accountability. It's an inherent flaw in the whole paradigm.

No system work  in a corrupted government...

I am done. There is no point in arguing anymore. None of my fellow debaters here are interested in understanding nor considering my position. I don't want to win. I want to learn and I've considered what has been said to its fullest extent. The logic boils down to the idea that the government is incorruptible and actually cares. I have yet to see that historically proven.

So I leave with an afterword by George Carlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hWiBt-pqp0E#t=491s

Oh and also what about middle age healthcare? Sure back then everyone died for everything but i mean, feudal system was awesome, it worked for centuries!

Comparing early 1900 technology to 2011? Nice, go heal yourself with 1900 machines. No wait, they HAD 0 MACHINES back then. They didn't even discover penicillin. An infection->you are dead.

Also the bolded part is false. New machines=moar expensive=i cannot spend so much, better go to the cheaper hospital even if they use older things. Just look at how things work. Normal people doesn't know about machines and what else, otherwise they would be doctor or engineers. Hospitals are better spending money in marketing than in useful things.

The mess usa have is cause it's a mixed things of private shit and insurances. If you are poor->no one heal you. But you STILL pay a lot of taxes, for what purposes, don't know.

With a decent public system you would have a good healthcare for EVERYONE, and the money would actually be used better cause you could not make profit out of it. Of course you need to have some systems to check how much every hospital spend to avoid absurd wastes
In europe countries manage to do that and our public system is often (always?) better than a loooot of private systems of other nations (who said usa?)

In b4 greece: greece fail is a problem of corruption and incompetence but that would ruin a private system too. If the government is corrupted then how long do you think a private system would last?

Now this is worthy of a fallacy.

The "People don't care so we need government." Fallacy

If people don't give a damn, the government won't since it (should) act on the desires of the people.

Of course there is a better solution. I wrote extensively about the root causes of the problem. Not a single person is contesting these causes. To find a solution you have to mitigate the cause of the problem. You can't exacerbate the causes and expect it to help.



I am sincerely sorry to hear of your health problems. I am glad they were treated effectively. Clearly you are not part of the root cause of our systems problems. You took responsibility and paid for the services you received.

You probably payed more than your "fair" share because the root cause (others who felt entitled not to pay) didn't pay for their services. We should all be horrified that you had to suffer unduly for the irresponsibility of others.



I am sincerely sorry to hear of your employment problems as well. Again, I think you are likely suffering unduly because of the irresponsibility of others. In this case, it was likely fund managers, bankers, loan brokers, appraisers, title companies, real estate agents who acted against irresponsibly in encouraging the boom which burst into recession.



I in no way want you to get sick again. Ever. But if that unfortunate circumstance should arise, I want your doctors to be great. Period. If you are sick, you should get the most effective treatment available. Period.

The only thing left to consider is how much of the cost for that treatment should be your obligation. I want to say a few things very clearly.
1. None of the extra overhead that comes from the irresponsibility parties should be your responsibility.
2. None of the bloat that comes from unnecessary procedures should be your responsibility.
3. No excessive markup going to anonymous insurance companies or government bureaucracies should be your responsibility.
4. No excessive service provider profits only obtainable because you had to "consent under duress" should be your responsibility.

So that just leave the true expenses that you or your family affirmatively consented to. That is the theoretical maximum cost it is even conceivable that should become your obligation to pay.

Now, let's say I was god and I could say with certainty that you will live (X) months and will incur ($Y) in above medical expenses. What should your "insurance" rate be?  Would ($Y/X) be fair?

If that is too high, who *must* be obligated to pay the remainder ($Y) and why?

I can't answer that question for you, because I don't even know you. Say I did know you. I might decide that I personally should carry some of your burden. You are indeed a worth soul and I would be honored to help out. Perhaps you are an awful neighbor who killed my dog and tormented me every waking moment. *Must* I be required to pay so you can return to torment me some more?

This is why questions of "community" weight so important. People who spend their lives benefiting others will likely have many people willing to step in. Those who spend their lives maliciously will find themselves among many hesitant to help.


Clearly you understand this principle already. Do you think that in a case of your extreme hardship, those people you have been "a good citizen" among will not step up?

If that is true. The government can't save us.

Nobody would spend more in healthcare services if people paid out of their pocket. Some would have to actually work to pay for it but that should be expected. Prices would be competitive to consumer desires so your last example wouldn't happen. If old machines didn't meet people's needs, people wouldn't go to clinics who didn't update their technology. The only companies who would make profit are the ones that people like.

It worked magnificently in early 1900s America. Small groups of poor people would hire their own private doctor for pennies on the dollar of today.  However, eventually some lobbied for restriction and look at the mess we have...

The government is what is supporting the monopoly in the first place. Again, we do not have a free nor private healthcare system. We haven't had one since the 20s.

How is different from having less taxes BUT having to spend more in "health insurances"?

At least the public healthcare system doesn't look to make PROFIT.

Private healthcare=they will keep using old machines cause "why buy new ones and SPEND? Oh it work better? Who cares, i'm private, profit profit"

The fact is those reserves have value since 2010! If you say this is what helps Cuba run their healthcare system you have to explain how this system was run in the period 1959-2010 to the effect that the lifespan in Cuba is even slightly higher than in the US?

Currently 17% of the GNP of the USA is spent for healthcare! This % has doubled during the last 20 years (continues to increase!) and is way ahead of every other nation on this Planet. Such a massive % of nation's wealth spent without any productivity is an indicator that something in the U.S. healthcare system is terribly wrong. The government should find ways to demolish this monopoly effectively established by healthcare and big pharma companies sucking taxpayer dollars. That is it and it is a big test for this Government!

Yes, exactly. General Motors was going broke fast. Chrysler was going broke slower. Are you trying to convince me that Chrysler was setting a great example that GM should be encouraged to follow?



Yay! We agree on some thing! There exist proposed national solutions that everyone sees won't solve the problem! Woot!


According to a really interesting Frontline documentary on universal healthcare, Germany has a two tier insurance system. The public buys inexpensive insurance that companies are sworn not to take any profit on. Then they make their profits selling supplemental insurance.

However, Doctors protest in the streets about making less that taxi drivers. The health care system as a whole runs in the red. There are continual cost overruns and the whole thing is increasingly supplemented by the general tax fund.

In fact according to Frontline *advocates* of universal healthcare, not a single UHC program on the planet runs in the black. Not the old ones. Not the new ones. Not insurance based ones. Not single payer ones.

Is there a root cause? Yes there is.