The basic “big picture” is that other countries with single payer or socialized medicine pay less per capital by a large amount, live longer healthier lives, and patients don’t lose their homes in bankruptcy. If they can do we can do it.
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bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
The flaw in that "data set" is that the populations are not similar.
1) As Americans, we eat like @#$% on average. It makes us far far unhealthier and that greatly impacts our health and longevity.
2) Socialized medicine = rationed care. That rationing can be mild, or severe, but in the end that results in a not-insignificant number of patients dying before they are seen and utilize medical resources. This artificially deflates the cost of care per captia in those countries.
3) Bankruptcy laws can be changed, should we desire. But one thing to note here is that behavior among Americans for their "last days" is very different than many other countries. We want EVERYTHING done to prolong our lives, and that is extremely costly, especially when we are talking hospitalization and cutting edge medicine. When I was practicing, I saw FAR LESS of this mindset from people of other countries and faiths. If we told them something was terminal (like an inoperable brain tumor), they would often chose palliative care, even when we as Drs. would sometimes push for the other.
You make valid arguments, I'm not trying to dismiss (all) of them. Just bear in mind that this is not fully an apples to apples comparison and things are much more difficult to boil down to something simple, like the politicians would like us to believe.
Florafauna
Member
Just looking for some Tesla earnings news and came upon this.
Coming from the UK the US healthcare system looks massively expensive, unpopular and leaves a significant number of people, effectively to die from lack of decent (or any) healthcare.
I've retired now but have never had to even think about healthcare when choosing a job, never had to worry about affording insurance premiums for me or any of my family. I can also walk down my "Main Street" and know that no-one is going to be left untreated.
The UK NHS employs around 1 million people - it isn't perfect, but we spend around(under) a half that the US spends on healthcare on a GDP per capital basis so who is getting value for money?
The NHS pay ONE THIRD the price for the same drugs that the US pays!
Last year there was a documentary program about a charity set up to provide dentistry for developing (poor) countries. Before they began operation, they had a call from a desperate US town - no facilities within 20 miles! 80% of their charity work is now done in the US. Isn't anyone in the US ashamed to have to rely on a charity set up to help desperately poor developing countries?
Hopefully we all get rich enough through Tesla investments not to have to worry about paying for healthcare. Fortunately I am already in that situation due to our flawed but brilliant system.
There are other benefits but lets get back to share watching...
Coming from the UK the US healthcare system looks massively expensive, unpopular and leaves a significant number of people, effectively to die from lack of decent (or any) healthcare.
I've retired now but have never had to even think about healthcare when choosing a job, never had to worry about affording insurance premiums for me or any of my family. I can also walk down my "Main Street" and know that no-one is going to be left untreated.
The UK NHS employs around 1 million people - it isn't perfect, but we spend around(under) a half that the US spends on healthcare on a GDP per capital basis so who is getting value for money?
The NHS pay ONE THIRD the price for the same drugs that the US pays!
Last year there was a documentary program about a charity set up to provide dentistry for developing (poor) countries. Before they began operation, they had a call from a desperate US town - no facilities within 20 miles! 80% of their charity work is now done in the US. Isn't anyone in the US ashamed to have to rely on a charity set up to help desperately poor developing countries?
Hopefully we all get rich enough through Tesla investments not to have to worry about paying for healthcare. Fortunately I am already in that situation due to our flawed but brilliant system.
There are other benefits but lets get back to share watching...
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Your seeing that from the (biased) news media perspective. Polls here in the US actually show that most people love their Dr. and their health insurance (private, from their employeer).
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I knew someone was going to bring this up, so I'm going to sink my teeth into it. Up front, I think it is a flawed system, but here we go:
The US pharmaceutical system forces US buyers to shoulder the burden of R&D costs for new medications. I worked in a lab during my Ph.D. that partnered with both a US-based and Japanese-based pharma companies, and saw this first hand. It's not fair, but because we are the "richest country in the world" they will intentionally keep prices higher in the US and then lower them in other countries to have "access to those markets".
What I suspect is going to happen in the future is that this is going to go away. The US consumer is very tired of this, and prices will be reduced for US consumers, but at the same time the rest of the world will be expected to shoulder heaver prices. If those countries don't agree, cutting edge drugs will probably no longer be released in those countries (we already see some of this with the really really high-end antibody pharmaceuticals).
Just bear in mind you are probably getting your drugs for cheaper than us not because your "drug managers" are so much better at negotiating than ours, but because our pharma companies are cutting a deal to gain access to your market.
Indeed, the unequal bargaining power there is very similar. Also, just like the private healthcare industry, prices there are also not really transparent. The UK is an (unfortunately) great example, where funerals prices have increased 122% since 2004 (https://www.sunlife.co.uk/siteassets/documents/cost-of-dying/cost-of-dying-report-2018.pdf).
Markets can be incredibly efficient. Sadly, situations like these are also the result of maximizing profits at all costs.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this excellent post.
Florafauna
Member
Thats great and the culture is definitely different in the US where media is heavily biased against anything seen as "socialist" which is attacked whether or not it is a good idea. Personally my belief is that we should be thinking of ideas the work rather than silly capitalist/socialist propaganda.
People don't like change - hence they like paying their premiums. They also like buying ICE cars. It takes time to adjust to new ways of doing things and there are always naysayers.
My brother emigrated to America and married an American so I do have a little experience from outside. She developed cancer and her employer immediately tried to sack her which would have terminated her insurance and would probably have terminated her. Nice.
She fought it and won but the stress suffered by a sick woman was immense. Fortunately she survived.
If the UK spent as much as the US on our healthcare we would solve quite a few of the problems over here. More than doubling the money spent in a short time frame would of course lead to plenty of other problems though.
I do hope the US can bring healthcare to all who need it, however it does it. This is not a political but a humanitarian issue.
Florafauna
Member
Thanks!
We all just want people to get treated when they are sick, wherever they are in the world.
Actually the USA is already a socialist country. Oh yes, the anti-socialists scream and whine. Yet these same people benefit by our socialist assets everyday namely the highways, fire department, police departments, airports, court system, beaches, national parks, state parks, schools, libraries, even congress and the White House is socialism. So I say to those with such fear of socialism, are you ready to eschew every one of the above services?
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
For profit insurance + medicine = rationed care. You can pretend otherwise but care is already rationed here by different mechanisms.
No one loves their insurance, which they pay for through reduced wages and high copays.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
HA HA HA. You think wages are "reduced" now? What do you think employers are going to do in the (extremely unlikely) even that M4A becomes law?
I can tell you for fact that the proposed taxes to fund it, I would be required to cut staff that I have. I love them all like family, but it would be necessary to keep the company afloat.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Too bad that won't cover the food they need to eat or the roof they need over their head. They may have healthcare, but they won't have anything else.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Norbert
TSLA will win
Alan Dershowitz: If the president does something that gets a republican re-elected, that can only be something good. Not impeachable.
Or something like that.
Or something like that.
Norbert
TSLA will win
Norbert
TSLA will win
And then, in an interview, he says he just said that because the democrats didn't charge T with bribery. I guess they should have. But he probably just meant to hypotheticalize legal theory. Or something like that.
And another lawyer defending T was apparently according to Bolton actually part of it. Not saying anything about that at all.
Is it not as absurd as I think ?
This administration’s policy of rolling back environmental regulations makes me extremely angry and even more committed to investing in clean energy. They’re on the wrong side of history in countless ways.
Off to buy another 100 shares.
Off to buy another 100 shares.
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