Against Universal healthcare, why ?

[Bill3000]

I dont understand this "you can keep your private doctor" stuff. If I have raised taxes on me to fund the government program, why am I dishing out more money for my own private doctor?

Presumably because you want a higher quality of care as opposed to a basic one.

Higher quality = more money.

Difference is that if you're down on your luck, for example you get fired, you'd still have some form of healthcare instead of none.

Oh and yeah, healthcare would be cheaper.

 

[Cutlass]

I dont understand this "you can keep your private doctor" stuff. If I have raised taxes on me to fund the government program, why am I dishing out more money for my own private doctor?

Because the amount of money you are paying WILL GO DOWN INSTEAD OF UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which you have been told 100 times at least. Your doc will simply be paid by a government agency instead of an insurance co. or HMO.

 

[Labtec600]

Because the amount of money you are paying WILL GO DOWN INSTEAD OF UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which you have been told 100 times at least. Your doc will simply be paid by a government agency instead of an insurance co. or HMO.

Sorry, yelling still doesnt make it make sense.

If the my private insurance is going to be going down because the government will start paying instead of it all being insurance, that doesnt address the fact of rising healthcare. The cost keeps going up and the government keeps putting more money into it which is just going to make taxes go up.

How is the cost of healthcare going to stop rising just because the goverment is putting money in?

 

[Cutlass]

Sorry, yelling still doesnt make it make sense.

If the my private insurance is going to be going down because the government will start paying instead of it all being insurance, that doesnt address the fact of rising healthcare. The cost keeps going up and the government keeps putting more money into it which is just going to make taxes go up.

How is the cost of healthcare going to stop rising just because the goverment is putting money in?

You are not paying attention to the reality of the situation. The insurers are the biggest part of the cause of the problem. The insurers have huge bureaucracies that generate paperwork that causes the health care providers to have huge bureaucracies. Most of the people who work in a doctors office do nothing except fill out the paperwork for the insurers. Eliminate the insurers, and you eliminate 1/2 to 2/3 of the people who work in the health care sector.

That's where most of your savings comes from. That's where other nations kick our ass in costs.

That and drug costs, which could also be easily reigned in.

 

[Berzerker]

To those Americans who are against universal health care a question, why are you against it ?

To those who answer, have you lived in a country with universal health care ?

no

Do you believe your employer should be obligated to cover you and your family for health care needs ?

if that was the deal we had when I agreed to the job, sure.

If yes, why, what labour does your employer get from your children ?, or is socialism OK if a employer pays ?

huh?

Is bankruptcy for so many a benefit of your current system ?

Of course, whats the alternative? Bankruptcy laws give poorly run businesses a chance to reform and restructure before the hammer falls.

As to my opposition, I dont really care if a one payer/national system is set up as long as a private system of health care is allowed to exist without a bunch of cost shifting from govt care to private care due to rationing. You want govt care, you pay for it. I want private, I pay for it.

 

[Berzerker]

Our family Doc stopped taking Medicare patients because of the paperwork and rationing, apparently he decided it was easier to deal with insurance companies. Most of the paperwork for insurance companies comes from complying with laws and low deduct policies. I dont even bother my insurance for small stuff, they're there in case I have a serious costly problem, not setting a broken bone or minor surgery.

Part of the problem is the more space or distance we create between health care consumer and health care provider the costs go up. For example, you bang up your car and take it to a body shop and they have 2 prices to repair your car - the cost if insurance is paying and the cost, the lower cost, you pay in cash. Its quite a difference, we paid ~$600 for some body work that would have cost the insurance company nearly double.

somebody else is paying for it

is one screwed up system

 

[Labtec600]

You are not paying attention to the reality of the situation. The insurers are the biggest part of the cause of the problem. The insurers have huge bureaucracies that generate paperwork that causes the health care providers to have huge bureaucracies. Most of the people who work in a doctors office do nothing except fill out the paperwork for the insurers. Eliminate the insurers, and you eliminate 1/2 to 2/3 of the people who work in the health care sector.

The stats aside (I would like to see these), by getting rid of insurers (which as I understand, isnt going to happen anyways) and replac=ing it with Government, you're going to get rid of the paper work?

That sounds pretty optimistic considering that government is the biggest Bureaucracy of them all. You will need a whole new department to intepret all the regulations they're going to create on healthcare if they start running it.

 

[otago]

Sorry, yelling still doesnt make it make sense.

If the my private insurance is going to be going down because the government will start paying instead of it all being insurance, that doesnt address the fact of rising healthcare. The cost keeps going up and the government keeps putting more money into it which is just going to make taxes go up.

How is the cost of healthcare going to stop rising just because the goverment is putting money in?

OK my own GPs locum is American, now he loves practicing medicine in NZ for one big reason.
He does not spend over half his productive hours fighting with Insurance companies.
And yes WE choose which GP we have,not the government, the government pay a proportion of the doctors fee and we pay around $30 on average for a consultation.
For some simple things say a cut which needs to be super glued the Practice nurse will do it with no need to see the
doc.
Three full time GPs in the practice I go to, and they own the practice, they have ONE receptionist/admin worker and two nurses funded by the government.

I was astonished when I went to a doctor in Boston at the number of admin staff they have to deal with multiple insurance companies.
I was also astonished at the bill for a five minute consultation.

 

[Mountain-God]

One system, whichever is chosen, has the potential to work very well or very badly.

People often cite inefficiency or corruption as far as public systems go - bureacratic waste, etc = absolutely true. But no different from a private system - which, is likely to take the same money wasted by a bureacratic system and call that profit - which is then funnelled into a few hands. And private, as we well know from current troubles, can be ineptly or corruptly run.

I'm in favour of a mixed system - where public and private working in tandem can keep each other honest, so to speak.

The biggest risk in a public system is more social - where small vocal groups demand high cost treatments subsidised by the government - New Zealand for example, the government has approved 1 year particular cancer treatment for about 100 people - for the same cost as providing free doctor consultation to several hundred thousand people.

In this light: Full-care, cradle to grave, universal health-care is impossible.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have something as near as reasonable.

 

[Mountain-God]

I was astonished when I went to a doctor in Boston at the number of admin staff they have to deal with multiple insurance companies.
I was also astonished at the bill for a five minute consultation.

It's this kind of thing which interests me about the USA - apparent poster-boy for capitalistic accomplishment, actually has more in common with the old red bear...

I think it's a fact that Americans could have universal health-care and lower taxes - if only they lost some of the sweet electronic bombs, and the corporate pork-barrel.

 

[civ_king]

Because the amount of money you are paying WILL GO DOWN INSTEAD OF UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which you have been told 100 times at least. Your doc will simply be paid by a government agency instead of an insurance co. or HMO.

and that doc wont need malpractice insurance, and wont need to see so many patients to feed his family

 

[Berzerker]

Your doc will simply be paid by a government agency instead of an insurance co

Why shouldn't I be paying my Doc? Wouldn't that be cheaper than paying some 3rd or 4th party who takes a cut before paying my Doc? Why in the hell are these other people intruding on me and my Doc?

 

[Oerdin]

To those Americans who are against universal health care a question, why are you against it ?

To those who answer, have you lived in a country with universal health care ?
Do you believe your employer should be obligated to cover you and your family for health care needs ?
If yes, why, what labour does your employer get from your children ?, or is socialism OK if a employer pays ?

Is bankruptcy for so many a benefit of your current system ?

Mostly they're against it because they have misconceptions about it and don't understand how it works. They think cancer patients die without ever seeing a doctor because of the doom and gloom stories Republicans have feed them. That it's all BS doesn't seem to register to their panicked little minds. Some people are just afraid of anything new.

 

[otago]

Mostly they're against it because they have misconceptions about it and don't understand how it works. They think cancer patients die without ever seeing a doctor because of the doom and gloom stories Republicans have feed them. That it's all BS doesn't seem to register to their panicked little minds. Some people are just afraid of anything new.

Funny thing is PBS Frontline had a excellent doc. showing different health care systems around the world.
Or is PBS seen as a bunch of socialists ?

 

[ThePrussian]

Funny thing is PBS Frontline had a excellent doc. showing different health care systems around the world.
Or is PBS seen as a bunch of socialists ?

PBS is a ******* network.

Socialism is slavery. From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, is slavery. In it, a person is enslaved to all of society. Southern democrat slave owners justified slavery on the grounds that the negro was incapable of living by himself, that mentally, he/she required enslavemet to function. That is fairly close (when you distill) it to people advoating the welfare socialist nany state.

Screw that. Give me the tools and create the system where I don't need government or societal largesse and charity. To live utterly independently of government.

 

[Bill3000]

Screw that. Give me the tools and create the system where I don't need government or societal largesse and charity. To live utterly independently of government.

Move to Somalia, then.

Until then, stop freeriding on my tax dollars.

 

[Cutlass]

Why shouldn't I be paying my Doc? Wouldn't that be cheaper than paying some 3rd or 4th party who takes a cut before paying my Doc? Why in the hell are these other people intruding on me and my Doc?

Because people can only afford that so long as nothing serious happens. Add up all the money you can lay your hands on and check the costs of cancer treatment. Where do you come out?

Funny thing is PBS Frontline had a excellent doc. showing different health care systems around the world.
Or is PBS seen as a bunch of socialists ?

PBS is the most accurate TV reporting. They don't have any ideological axes to grind.

The stats aside (I would like to see these), by getting rid of insurers (which as I understand, isnt going to happen anyways) and replac=ing it with Government, you're going to get rid of the paper work?

That sounds pretty optimistic considering that government is the biggest Bureaucracy of them all. You will need a whole new department to intepret all the regulations they're going to create on healthcare if they start running it.

Much of the problems stems from each insurance company having different paperwork. That adds hugely to the administrative burden. The other main part is that it is the insurer's and HMO's claims peoples jobs to deny you treatment in any possible way that they can. And one of the ways is to make the paperwork so burdensome that people can't complete it to their satisfaction. HMOs reward their employees who deny the most claims. Regardless of the merits of the claims.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

Why shouldn't I be paying my Doc? Wouldn't that be cheaper than paying some 3rd or 4th party who takes a cut before paying my Doc? Why in the hell are these other people intruding on me and my Doc?

It's the nature of the problem. There's a large likelihood that you won't need particularly expensive healthcare, and a small likelihood that you will need healthcare that will financially ruin you and your family. You put everyone in a giant risk pool so everyone pays something close to what their actual risks are.

Cleo

 

[El_Machinae]

How is the cost of healthcare going to stop rising just because the goverment is putting money in?

Oh, the cost of healthcare is going to continue to rise year-to-year. It's going to rise faster than inflation (even without all these bailouts). The populations are getting older, there is greater demand for medicine, and the tools & diagnostics are improving. So the health problem is getting worse (aging) and the medicine is improving (and thus price is going up).

The thing is, in the States, the price of health care is vastly inflated due to the insurance system. By getting the government involved, that price will be reduced. The cost of healthcare is going to continue rising under either system, but the system in the States can be modified so that the absolute price is reduced.

To actually reduce the cost of healthcare, you would need an intervention which improves the health of the populace which is cheaper to use than inflation. You'd also need diagnostics which become cheaper year-to-year (which is happening in some fields). These Magic Pills (TM) are being worked on, and people could eat more veggies and exercise more too. Those would slow the rate-of-rise.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

To actually reduce the cost of healthcare, you would need an intervention which improves the health of the populace which is cheaper to use than inflation. You'd also need diagnostics which become cheaper year-to-year (which is happening in some fields). These Magic Pills (TM) are being worked on, and people could eat more veggies and exercise more too. Those would slow the rate-of-rise.

Not entirely related to the OP, but you know what else is a Magic Pill? More sick days for American workers. How many people do you know go to work sick? (I know I do, so it's not like I'm on a high horse here.) Then your co-workers get sick, or you get sicker because you're working instead of resting and drinking OJ. I know that epidemiologists consider the Americans' aversion to taking sick days a substantial issue with regard to disease control.

Cleo