Simple. Considering America is an utter basket case on healthcare, follow the rest of the world’s example
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Medicare for all - fixing US healthcare
- Thread starter israndy
- Start date
I really cannot understand that the richest country on earth cannot get its act together on healthcare. That in the richest country on earth people are dying because they had to ration their medication or that they did not have the money to pay for a certain surgery.
If the rest of the industrialized world can do it why do you guys think you cannot? Why do people think that Universal Healthcare is not the answer when the rest of the industrialized world has proven otherwise?
Study and learn. In the Netherlands for instance there is competition to keep costs low. The government dictates what needs to be covered in a base policy. The insurance companies put a price on the policy and people can shop around every year for the company with the lowest premiums
In Canada, healthcare is done through the provinces. Most of it is funded through the taxes and no, the taxes are not sky high up here. The healthcare is basic and covers doctor's visits and hospitalization, surgery and all kinds of examinations. Through your work you can have extended healthcare which covers dentist, eyecare and costs of prescription drugs. Though costs of prescription drugs is covered through Pharmacare for low income families.
Nobody dies because they cannot get the treatment they need or cannot get the medication they need.
If the rest of the industrialized world can do it why do you guys think you cannot? Why do people think that Universal Healthcare is not the answer when the rest of the industrialized world has proven otherwise?
Study and learn. In the Netherlands for instance there is competition to keep costs low. The government dictates what needs to be covered in a base policy. The insurance companies put a price on the policy and people can shop around every year for the company with the lowest premiums
In Canada, healthcare is done through the provinces. Most of it is funded through the taxes and no, the taxes are not sky high up here. The healthcare is basic and covers doctor's visits and hospitalization, surgery and all kinds of examinations. Through your work you can have extended healthcare which covers dentist, eyecare and costs of prescription drugs. Though costs of prescription drugs is covered through Pharmacare for low income families.
Nobody dies because they cannot get the treatment they need or cannot get the medication they need.
Friend (and ex-employee of mine) posted this on Facebook a couple weeks ago. He recently left Microsoft in Seattle and is now working at Ubisoft in Montreal.
Today pretty much blew my mind. There are no water bills here. In fact, people here are appalled to hear that people have to pay for water in the US. They are flabbergasted to hear that the water would be turned off if you can't afford to pay for it.
The electric bill is called "hydro" because their electricity is generated from hydroelectric generation.
Security deposits on apartments are illegal. So are pet deposits and pet rent. So is raising the rent by more than inflation.
Healthcare is free. Period.
My tax rate here is lower than my tax rate in the US.
Weed is legal.
I found an apartment that is double the size of my apartment in Seattle, and is about the same rent I paid in 2003.
I see you have yet to show how the tax cuts act for the rich saved pre-existing conditions. The only think I can find about it and the ACA is that it rolled back the individual mandate.
Millions of Americans didn’t know that Obamacare & The Affordable Care Act were the same thing. Just contemplate that for a second. And these people vote.
Voting should be weighted by education level and field, age and IQ. So a 25 year old with a PhD in mathematics & 200 IQ gets closest to the most votes, while a 90 year old who dropped out of high school & scores 75 IQ gets close to 1 vote only. That’s of course only if you value critical thinking
Voting should be weighted by education level and field, age and IQ. So a 25 year old with a PhD in mathematics & 200 IQ gets closest to the most votes, while a 90 year old who dropped out of high school & scores 75 IQ gets close to 1 vote only. That’s of course only if you value critical thinking
The problem is taxation w/o representation. All the smart people would rather someone else pay the taxes so all the dumb people would, in your example.
I had hoped this thread would bring up thoughts on getting us on a path to decent healthcare. Sadly it has been mostly hijacked by a troll, which I guess is what is happening IRL and why we cannot move forward.
I guess Pres. Obama has it right. First we need to fix the voting system. Education comes quickly behind that, perhaps Lee would be a better opponent in the debate.
I had hoped this thread would bring up thoughts on getting us on a path to decent healthcare. Sadly it has been mostly hijacked by a troll, which I guess is what is happening IRL and why we cannot move forward.
I guess Pres. Obama has it right. First we need to fix the voting system. Education comes quickly behind that, perhaps Lee would be a better opponent in the debate.
lowtek
Active Member
Deregulate healthcare, let competition raise quality and lower prices, industry adjusts over time, fix the parenting problem and the entitlement expectation so kids don't try to make careers out of McDonalds, teach kids that their feelings are secondary to facts and nobody is going to give them anything, they have to earn it, 25 years later ... boom! Everybody can afford healthcare and those few that can't can be covered by their state as voters see fit. If you don't like your state's policies, you're free to move elsewhere. This was the intent, and it was wise. The Fed shouldn't be involved.
Having worked at a doctors office -
- medical school cost and ripoff loan rates.
- office space cost is astronomical
- liability insurance costs
(Liability for adverse outcomes in Costa Rica?)
- time required even for the easiest of cases (visit time, measures to make insurance happy, dealing with insurance) - all leads to high staffing requirements.
- medicine cost
- fraud (companies pushing unneeded devices because Medicare will pay)
- end of life cost.
- medical school cost and ripoff loan rates.
- office space cost is astronomical
- liability insurance costs
(Liability for adverse outcomes in Costa Rica?)
- time required even for the easiest of cases (visit time, measures to make insurance happy, dealing with insurance) - all leads to high staffing requirements.
- medicine cost
- fraud (companies pushing unneeded devices because Medicare will pay)
- end of life cost.
lowtek
Active Member
lowtek
Active Member
True, today, that's exactly how it is. But you start letting entrepreneurs compete and watch what happens. Much like widgets, the good ones will rise above the bad, and reputations will build.
That seems to be the problem, doesn't it? No options to "shop around". Healthcare has been institutionalized.
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The problem with shopping around for price is it causes a drive to the bottom. Like on Android phones. What we want is the best outcomes, that should be the metric. But how do you shop for that?
We need single payer so we don't have to worry about cost, a single contract will be provided to cover all patients. Then the "market" will be the hospitals striving for better outcomes so they get more funding.
We need single payer so we don't have to worry about cost, a single contract will be provided to cover all patients. Then the "market" will be the hospitals striving for better outcomes so they get more funding.
SDRick
Active Member
You don't shop for price?
I will remember that next time I shop for important things in my life. A house, a car, food, clothing, a lawyer or a doctor.
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lowtek
Active Member
Then buy an iPhone ... you have to choose what level of quality you want for the amount of money you're willing to spend on a product or service, nothing changes.
That may be what you want us to need, but that's not what everybody wants and need is relative. A lot of us want (and need) the Federal government out of it completely. At the state level, it's fair game. At least if it ends up being terrible (or great) then there's options to move to or out of that state.
Also, you're talking about the Federal Government here .. they do a lot of great things, but efficiency isn't one of them .. cost would only go up and up and up .. and since the Federal Government has no money, the taxpayers end up covering it.
Which is the cornerstone of the actual problem, should the Federal Government take from those that do for themselves and give to those that choose not to. Outlier cases aside, not really talking about the humanitarian healthcare coverage for those that *actually* can't help themselves.
reddy
Active Member
I have some sympathy for this viewpoint.
After all, do we want the same people who bring us the US Postal Service, the IRS, and the VA healthcare system to be running the entire healthcare system ?
But I have to say that the utter lack of coordination, and inconsistency from one practice to another, is a huge problem. Medical practices are started by people with great medical training, but zero training on how create a high quality, efficient, and appealing experience for the patient / consumer. So each one is like how automobiles were built in 1900. There can be good ones and bad ones, but not very many stellar ones. We are in an era with medical practices, where cars were before Henry Ford. So we don't have consistent quality from encounter to encounter, and we get variable results.
Countries with national health systems DO fix this problem, and have less administrative overhead and waste.
You might wonder why private businesses don't take over and run medical practices. Increasingly they DO. The minority of MDs are now in private practice. But the healthcare systems typically assign the junior MBA to run doctors offices; they graduate later to the hospital side where the big bucks are when they are more seasoned. And, their key performance indicators ARE NOT quality or low cost. Quite the contrary, they are judged on how much PROFIT they make.
Their incentives are diametrically opposed to financial efficiency, and they have an event horizon that is 1 quarter out, not a 5 - 10 year horizon.
And, the business people in healthcare know shockingly little about medicine, or necessary workflows.
So, the USA system is essentially built for failure - it's disorganized, is centered around specialists instead of PCPs, and filled with waste.
Don't make the mistake for assuming single payor means socialist healthcare. Many countries are single payer, yet preserve independent competing medical practices.
lowtek
Active Member
I would love that! But with the flip flop nature of our politics, I have a hard time getting on board with anything that builds government. You just don't know what the next guys will do with it when they get in office.
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lowtek
Active Member
When referring to deregulating healthcare I think we're mostly talking about reimbursement .. where healthcare businesses are forced to settle for payment based on a federally regulated table (with 2 year old data) and not their cost + margin ..
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