Should Health Care be free?

[111chase111]

I.E. do you think that the government should provide free health care to all citizens?

Personally I don't. I don't think anyone should get anything for free. Or, to put it another way, I don't think you are entitled to anything but life, liberty and the persuit of happiness just by existing.

However, clearly, health care is in a sad state in this country. I don't think the answer is government provided health care as I think the problems are deeper than just having the government (or someone) pay for it. I also think that if government provided healthcare then the government should be able to tell you what to eat and how much to exercise as they would have to control costs somehow. I just don't see how the government could pay for everyone's healthcare but let everyone just live like they pleased.

I think health care is too expensive. I'm not talking about health insurance here; I'm talking about what the actual costs of procedures and medical supplies are (have you priced what aspirin costs in a hospital?).

Personally I think that if people actually paid their own money for health services you'd see prices go down. Right now, you don't care how much it costs as insurance pays for it which makes the prices really high for people who don't have insurance. I'm sure lawsuits don't help with the cost of healthcare either.

So what would be the solution? I would like to see some way of providing health care for some fixed, reasonable cost that anyone could buy regardless of employment. Any doctors who accepted that cheap insurance might be exempt from malpractice and get a tax break for accepting it (give the doctors/hospitals some incentive to provide lower costs health care).

If you worked for yourself you could buy into it. If you were laid off you could buy into it. Heck, your work would no longer have to even provide health care but some business's probably still would to get better employees (which is how work-provided health care started in the first place).

Anyone have any good ideas? Or are people pretty much split between 1) the government should provide health care for everyone regardless or 2) keep it the way it is.

[giddyup]

There is some thought toward Community Healthcare rates The policies would be guaranteed issue but there would be a waiting period for care- so you can't lay out and just go buy the policy when you need care.

Clark Howard is a strong proponent of this type of health insurance. Employer provided health care has created a rift between the haves and the have-nots and the employers are having a rough time affording it.

[AggieRocket]

I.E. do you think that the government should provide free health care to all citizens?



No. The government shouldn't have to provide health care for all citizens. The cost is not worth the benefit.

[FranchiseBlade]

No. The government shouldn't have to provide health care for all citizens. The cost is not worth the benefit.
I believe that the govt. should provide it. Other members of my family and I have been the recipient of free govt. healthcare in New Zealand, and it was terrific. I've also had prohibitive health care costs here in the U.S. that took me years to recover from financially despite my working multiple jobs.

The nations that are listed as having the best health care all have national healthcare for their citizens. Health is not something only the wealthy should be entitled to.

[pippendagimp]

preventive healthcare should be free

[halfbreed]

The nations that are listed as having the best health care all have national healthcare for their citizens. Health is not something only the wealthy should be entitled to.

However, those who usually rank these types of things favor that type of healthcare system anyways so they would be more inclined to rank countries with such healthcare systems highers.

It would be great if the government could provide healthcare to everyone. However as was said earlier there's no such thing as FREE healthcare. Someone has to pay for it. Plus, as with anything paid for by government and run by a bureaucracy, quality of care is greatly diminished. There have been numerous documented shortcomings of said healthcare systems. By no means is our current system anywhere near perfect but I think that it's a better choice than any alternative that has been presented so far.

[pirc1]

Many other devloped nations have national health care system, it does not have to be 100% free. There could be Co pays and % out of pocket, but there definately should be a national health care system. There should also be medical school reform by increasing the number of doctors.

[MartianMan]

Preventative Medicine and Basic care should be free. Everything else, people should pay. I'm tired of paying for the health care of people who don't take care of themselves. I exercise 5-6 times a week and eat healthy foods 90% of the time. Why should I pay for a guy who doesn't exercise, doesn't buckle his seatbelt when he drives, and doesn't eat healthy foods. It just screws over the rest of us.

Funny thing is, national health care is a socialist idea. Very uncapitalistic. It's closer to communism and socialism.

[DaDakota]

ABSOLUTLY,

Health care costs are spiraling out of control, and HMOs and PPOs are getting rich, while others can't afford it.

There is no reason that the richest nation in the history of the planet should not provide healthcare for all it's citizens.

Most of the other civilized nations have national healthcare plans, and so should we.

DD

[pippendagimp]

I was involved in an accident a couple weeks ago and had to be taken to the ER. A few x-rays, some stitches, some narco pain killers, some antibiotics, and a 90 second visit with the actual doctor..........$2100 worth of damage for my insurance company.

The same care or better in two dozen other countries would have cost only a very small fraction of this. And the reason is that drug companies, hospital groups, and physician lobbies in the States have all had Washington slurping on their johnsons for decades now. Healthcare costs in America are an absolute joke. And I would have hoped that the Republicans taking over all 3 branches of government now would have done something about it what with their supposed love of free market economics. But on the contrary, they have only exacerbated the problem in the past few years by whoring themselves out with the prescription drug bill which is essentially guarantees price fixing for drug co's, malpractice reform which makes it near impossible for a negligent physician to get sued, and disallowing drug purchases from Canada.

[halfbreed]

I was involved in an accident a couple weeks ago and had to be taken to the ER. A few x-rays, some stitches, some narco pain killers, some antibiotics, and a 90 second visit with the actual doctor..........$2100 worth of damage for my insurance company.

The same care or better in two dozen other countries would have cost only a very small fraction of this. And the reason is that drug companies, hospital groups, and physician lobbies in the States have all had Washington slurping on their johnsons for decades now. Healthcare costs in America are an absolute joke. And I would have hoped that the Republicans taking over all 3 branches of government now would have done something about it what with their supposed love of free market economics. But on the contrary, they have only exacerbated the problem in the past few years by whoring themselves out with the prescription drug bill which is essentially guarantees price fixing for drug co's, malpractice reform which makes it near impossible for a negligent physician to get sued, and disallowing drug purchases from Canada.


You also would have had to wait an average of 8 months for an appointment such as that. So you did have to pay a large sum but you got the care you needed in a timely fashion.

[FranchiseBlade]

You also would have had to wait an average of 8 months for an appointment such as that. So you did have to pay a large sum but you got the care you needed in a timely fashion.
Where are you talking about? In most places that have national health care ER visits are immediate. I know that when I went in, for New Zealand I just had some x-rays, and a was given a sling, but it was immediate. My mother had stitches, and an x-ray, my father had stitches and a cast, my mother's uncle had to be put in traction and then moved to a hospital that specialized in back injuries.

He ended up staying in the hospital for a month. It was all free, and we never had to wait for anything. I know that in England if you need something and it is too full in England, they will find out what European country can perform the procedure right away, and they pay to fly you to the place right away, and it is all free.

[FranchiseBlade]

However, those who usually rank these types of things favor that type of healthcare system anyways so they would be more inclined to rank countries with such healthcare systems highers.

It would be great if the government could provide healthcare to everyone. However as was said earlier there's no such thing as FREE healthcare. Someone has to pay for it. Plus, as with anything paid for by government and run by a bureaucracy, quality of care is greatly diminished. There have been numerous documented shortcomings of said healthcare systems. By no means is our current system anywhere near perfect but I think that it's a better choice than any alternative that has been presented so far.
But it isn't greatly diminished. Other nations have a lower infant mortality rate, higher life expectancy, etc. The care my mother's uncle and all of us received in New Zealand was free and equal to anything that could be gotten here.

Of course the money to pay for it would have to come from taxes. But if we have a healthier society, that means more productivity, companies don't have to pay for healthcare of their employees, everyone is covered. Of course without the debt, our nation wouldn't have the interest payments and nobody would have to pay any new taxes at that time, and 21% of the nations total budget could pay for healthcare since that is the money that goes toward the interest now.

After we paid down the debt, nobody would have to pay more taxes than they are now, and everyone gets healthcare.

[halfbreed]

I stumbled accross these 2 articles within the past month and thought they would both be relevant.

The first deals with an example of a long wait for a seemingly routine procedure. Granted this does not happen with everything in socialized medicine but there are large numbers of cases that follow the same type of story as this one.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1592897,00.html

The second one is a good look at comparing the British and US healthcare systems. Tells the pros and cons of both sides.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006785

[pippendagimp]

You also would have had to wait an average of 8 months for an appointment such as that. So you did have to pay a large sum but you got the care you needed in a timely fashion.

Where did you get this average 8 month wait statistic for emergency room visits in other industrialized countries?

Also, I didn't have to pay the large sum, in fact I didn't have to pay a dime. My insurance co paid the whole thing no questions asked. So I have to assume that $2100 for a basic ER visit must be the standard normal going rate these days, which is pretty ridiculous.

[fadeaway]

Health care should definitely be free. The fact that it isn't in the US is one of the main reasons why I would never choose to live there.

[pirc1]

Health care should definitely be free. The fact that it isn't in the US is one of the main reasons why I would never choose to live there.


Totally free will cause the people to use resources even if they do not need it. So you should always charge some but not the prices currently being charged in the US.

[Rocket River]

This is America
We are a capitalist country
NOTHING SHOULD BE FREE

It is not worth anything unless someone at the top is making a profit

This is why toll roads are on the rise
no one is fixing your plumbing so u must buy water

soon they will be privatizing schools and prisons totally

NOTHING SHOULD BE FREE

SOMEONE *MUST* make a cash profit off it

Rocket River
that is the NEW America

[AntiSonic]

I'd rather bleed money to insurance companies and doctors for good services than have the government take my money and provide what would be (let's face it) subpar ones.

[MR. MEOWGI]

It should be affordable.

[Rocket River]

I'd rather bleed money to insurance companies and doctors for good services than have the government take my money and provide what would be (let's face it) subpar ones.

Actually
You maybe right
HOWEVER the problem is
that we ACCEPT the Government's inadquacies
we
do not DEMAND better from the government
we just make the joke reality
that
the government will never do anything efficiently

Rocket River
Revamp the way Government does business

[Tdogg]

On some levels it appears that Healthcare is free...

This is just from observations that I have been informed from my girlfriend who works at an out-patient clininc.

She tells me of several people who are not even US citizens that come into their place of business and these people have government health care coverage. Believe me she calls in to verify the insurances all the time and these are legitimate coverages that their clinic is compensated for. I don't know the whole logisitcs, but it is either medicare or medicaid (I personally get them confused), but my girlfriend can spit out most of the insurance jargon with the best of them.

Can someone explain this to me?

Her biggest complaint is that these people that have no residence or citizenship in the US have this free health coverage, while working class people, that she sees come in to the clinic have to try and work out payment plans because it is apparent that health care for them is not financially feasible.

I honestly do not now if these individuals had to lie in some respect to obtain their coverage, or if there is some true coverage that our tax dollars pay for that allow non-US individuals to obtain some level of health care.

All I can say is that if there is some coverage that our government offers to non-citizens, then why do they not f-ing offer some to the people of our country that can barely afford to pay their bills to stay above water with their low paying wages.

I will step down from my soap box...

... sorry for the rant

[111chase111]

It should be affordable.

I think this is the path to take. Health care should be affordable and not free. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think anyone should get anything for free just by existing.

[Tdogg]

I think this is the path to take. Health care should be affordable and not free. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think anyone should get anything for free just by existing.


Affordable is the way to go. If that was an option for health care that is the route I would take 111chase111.

In my above rant I was not trying to imply that heatlh care be free, only that it is appalling(sp?) if there are those who appear to have found a loop-hole of some sort.

pirc1 made a good point that many people would abuse free health care. It reminded me of another point my gf informed me about.

She has also told me of several instances of people who are on medicare/medicaid (I am sorry that I am not sure which of the two i was originally told about), that pull up to the clinic she works at, and these people are driving mercedes (nice/expensive cars) and she tells me they are wearing lavish jewelry, but they are demanding that their perscription of Robutussin be filled.

I honestly was dumbfounded that if you receive medicare/medicaid, that as long as the doctor writes the perscription, then it does not have to be paid for out of pocket. I was under the assumption that OTC medication wouldn't be covered and that OTC medication was something that had to be paid out of pocket.

**shrug** :(

[FranchiseBlade]

Affordable is the way to go. If that was an option for health care that is the route I would take 111chase111.

In my above rant I was not trying to imply that heatlh care be free, only that it is appalling(sp?) if there are those who appear to have found a loop-hole of some sort.

pirc1 made a good point that many people would abuse free health care. It reminded me of another point my gf informed me about.

She has also told me of several instances of people who are on medicare/medicaid (I am sorry that I am not sure which of the two i was originally told about), that pull up to the clinic she works at, and these people are driving mercedes (nice/expensive cars) and she tells me they are wearing lavish jewelry, but they are demanding that their perscription of Robutussin be filled.

I honestly was dumbfounded that if you receive medicare/medicaid, that as long as the doctor writes the perscription, then it does not have to be paid for out of pocket. I was under the assumption that OTC medication wouldn't be covered and that OTC medication was something that had to be paid out of pocket.

**shrug** :(
The OTC stuff can be covered if there is a perscritption for it. In the case of diabetes supplies the OTC test strips are more expensive than the actual medicine. They add up to cost in the thousands in the course of a year. It is much better to be able to get perscription for those and have them paid for.

The problem with illegal immigrants using clinics and emergency rooms for free, is that their options are often limited. It is a huge problem when a child that isn't having an emergency is brought to the emergency room because the parents can't afford to take it anywhere else, it takes time, and costs money to everyone else who has to pay for it.

I would rather it all be free or very minimal costs, because that way they would be able to go to regular medical facilities and the emergency room would be for emergencies. Everyone should be cared for in the best possible way.

[FranchiseBlade]

I stumbled accross these 2 articles within the past month and thought they would both be relevant.

The first deals with an example of a long wait for a seemingly routine procedure. Granted this does not happen with everything in socialized medicine but there are large numbers of cases that follow the same type of story as this one.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1592897,00.html

The second one is a good look at comparing the British and US healthcare systems. Tells the pros and cons of both sides.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006785
A couple of things about the articles. The wall street journal one, is particularly strange because it is like a hybrid, since he was a foreigner using the UK system. For the citizens of the nation, the health care wouldn't have even cost the 25k it talks about costing him.

But I disagree with him talking about the author talking about lack of inventive health care solutions and the incentive being gone in Britain. The most promising healthcare advance in fighting breast cancer has come from there, and deals with ways to weaken the cancer cells while not harming healthy cells as well. The process is one that doesn't give the cells chances to develop immunities to any medications either. It is new and not 100% certain that it will always help, but it is an innovation that the Brits had with their nationalized healthcare that no other nation had.

The other article talks about a few nightmare scenarios, and those can be found in any system, and are found in all of them. Neither complete privatization, nor complete nationalization of healthcare will get rid of those.

I would say that before we institute a nationalized health care plan we should look very carefully at how it should be instituted. We could take the best ideas from nations already doing it, and try to mesh them together in a way that would best serve our own people.

[thegary]

heatlthcare should be absolutely free, effective, and cutting edge. FOR EVERYONE. we are the freakin' united states of america, the greatest nation on earth, right? we should take care of our own. in addition, higher education should be free. it's the civilized thing to do.

[whag00]

heatlthcare should be absolutely free, effective, and cutting edge. FOR EVERYONE. we are the freakin' united states of america, the greatest nation on earth, right? we should take care of our own. in addition, higher education should be free. it's the civilized thing to do.

I take it you are ready to pay 70% income tax.

[pirc1]

heatlthcare should be absolutely free, effective, and cutting edge. FOR EVERYONE. we are the freakin' united states of america, the greatest nation on earth, right? we should take care of our own. in addition, higher education should be free. it's the civilized thing to do.

Higher education will not just cost more, I expect many state institutions to become private in the future. The univeristy I am working at is already over 55% funded by tuition and when ten years ago it was funded like 65% by state. Tuition will keep on going up I expect, out of state students now pay about 20k for tuition.

[Refman]

I believe that the govt. should provide it. Other members of my family and I have been the recipient of free govt. healthcare in New Zealand, and it was terrific. I've also had prohibitive health care costs here in the U.S. that took me years to recover from financially despite my working multiple jobs.

The nations that are listed as having the best health care all have national healthcare for their citizens. Health is not something only the wealthy should be entitled to.
They tried it in Washington state right after Hilary Clinton started tossing the idea around. They discontinued it a year later for two reasons:

1. Doctors fled the state in droves because they could not earn a living enough to purchase a home in Seattle and pay their student loans.

2. They found that costs were out of control because people were going to the doctor every time they sniffled. It becomes easier to justify when there is no cost to you involved.

[FranchiseBlade]

They tried it in Washington state right after Hilary Clinton started tossing the idea around. They discontinued it a year later for two reasons:

1. Doctors fled the state in droves because they could not earn a living enough to purchase a home in Seattle and pay their student loans.

2. They found that costs were out of control because people were going to the doctor every time they sniffled. It becomes easier to justify when there is no cost to you involved.

1. I think it depends on what model we use, but I understand that doctors there would leave, because they can make more money elsewhere and with only state resources to draw on they wouldn't be able to pay them a truly appropriate wage. Just look at the wage teachers get. But with Federal funding I think it could be remedied.

2. Yes that can happen. I believe that it happens a lot the beginning of programs but then it tapers off. I heard that on some debate about the subject in college, and that was many years ago, so there might be new studies. I can only speak personally that I don't enjoy going to the doctor. I have to miss work or something fun, and the doctor's office is never fun. Unless I have to do I would never go, even if I was the one being paid :) .

But I would still rather people go too much than have people, especially children who know there is are treatments out there that can help them with whatever conditions they have, but can't get adequate treatment. I've been in that situation before, and with insurance changes I had to go from a treatment that was working, to one that wasn't for some years, and I know the damage done over that time, but I won't know the extent of any permanent damage until the future. The whole time I knew there was a treatment out there that worked, but just couldn't get afford it, because it was too expensive.

[Sishir Chang]

I.E. do you think that the government should provide free health care to all citizens?

Personally I don't. I don't think anyone should get anything for free. Or, to put it another way, I don't think you are entitled to anything but life, liberty and the persuit of happiness just by existing.

However, clearly, health care is in a sad state in this country. I don't think the answer is government provided health care as I think the problems are deeper than just having the government (or someone) pay for it.

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious but if we are entitled to life then technically the government should provide health care to all whether they can pay for it or not. For instance if someone was bleeding to death a doctor is bound by the Hippocratic Oath to save them but the Hippocratic Oath isn't in the Constitution neither is there an enumerated right to life in Constitution.

[CBrownFanClub]

I'd rather bleed money to insurance companies and doctors for good services than have the government take my money and provide what would be (let's face it) subpar ones.

No, let's face that some government-paid healthcare is actually kick ass, not subpar. I work at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, and it is the 2nd best hospital in the bay area. In fact, some of the best docs in the area are gravitating toward the VA because it is single payer and they do not have spend 400% of their time dealing with BS billing regulations from Blue Cross or Healthnet or whatever.

I am so tired of the blanket take 'all public-run facilities are terrible.' That is such incorrect garbage - no public program has eever worked, no non-profit facility does what it is supposed to.

Yes, some suck. Some suck hard, I have worked at those too, it is not pretty. But saying that profit-driven, rather than value-driven community services are the only way to get anything accomplished is pretty damn cynical, not to mention totally incorrect. Some single payer stuff works. I think we should face that.

As AggieRocket's that it is not cost-effective to provide health care for those who live in among us - thanks for that. It is also not cost effective to provide rural electrification, space exploration, the FDIC, the NIH, food stamps, social security, public broadcasting, state parks, farm subsidies, any health and human service, or even civil rights.

I hope that hundreds of years down the road, people look at our society and say "They did what was cost effective."

And by the way, it is actually cost effective to provide quality health care rich and poor.

[MartianMan]

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious but if we are entitled to life then technically the government should provide health care to all whether they can pay for it or not. For instance if someone was bleeding to death a doctor is bound by the Hippocratic Oath to save them but the Hippocratic Oath isn't in the Constitution neither is there an enumerated right to life in Constitution.

That's not true. Entitlement to life just means you have the right to live. No person can take your life away from you. Of course circumstances may occur in which your life is put in peril and you may die from disease or wounds. You are not guaranteed the right to "all methods possible" to save your life. Same thing with the right to pursue happniess. Perhaps happiness to you is to lie around doing nothing. Unfortunately, circumstances (in this case the need for money to pay for food and rent) prevent you from doing so. The government is not obligated to 'give' you life, liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness. The government is just obligated to prevent others from withholding you those right.

The Hippocratic Oath is merely an ancient relic of tradition. Plus, it only deals with doctors, not the country as a whole.

[Sishir Chang]

Yes and no. Many rights have been interpretted to government actively working to preserve those rights. For instance government has on occasion acted to preserve a diverse and free press through developing media and openning access to them. If there is a right to life then it wouldn't mean much if government didn't act to preserve it in some way, that would mean providing health care.

As for things like the right to the pursuit of happiness. It says pursuit so the government is under no obligation to provide happiness. If happiness to me is to lie around all day I'm free to pursue it, I may not get it but the government gives me the right to pursue it. If it said "the right to happiness" then there's an argument that they government would have to provide for the other stuff so I could have my happiness.

Finally for the Hippocratic Oath that was my point. Its not in the Constitution same as a specifically enumerated right to life. A strict Constitutionalist would say that those three rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence have no legal barring once we gained our independence. My only point was that 111Chase said those were the only three rights he recognized as government's obligation if so then I would say under the right to life government is obliged to provide health care to preserve life.

One last note on the Hippocratic Oath I think its more than just an ancient relic but under I think all state and federal law does compel medical personnel to provide emergency aid whether the patient can pay or not. So technically the government does provide free (or at least compel medical personnel) health care.

[rhester]

There is no free health care anywhere in the world.

Somebody pays for it.

The question should be phrased- should those who work and pay taxes pay more taxes so that the government can pay for the cost of healthcare?

Makes me no difference- I don't see our nation avoiding the economic distaster already coming because of the size of our government debt.

[RocketMan Tex]

ABSOLUTLY,

Health care costs are spiraling out of control, and HMOs and PPOs are getting rich, while others can't afford it.

There is no reason that the richest nation in the history of the planet should not provide healthcare for all it's citizens.

Most of the other civilized nations have national healthcare plans, and so should we.

DD

I agree 100,000 percent! :)

[gifford1967]

June 13, 2005
One Nation, Uninsured
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance system. Public opinion was initially on his side: Jill Quadagno's book "One Nation, Uninsured" tells us that in 1945, 75 percent of Americans favored national health insurance. If Truman had succeeded, universal coverage for everyone, not just the elderly, would today be an accepted part of the social contract.

But Truman failed. Special interests, especially the American Medical Association and Southern politicians who feared that national insurance would lead to racially integrated hospitals, triumphed.

Sixty years later, the patchwork system that evolved in the absence of national health insurance is unraveling. The cost of health care is exploding, the number of uninsured is growing, and corporations that still provide employee coverage are groaning under the strain.

So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.

But special interests will, once again, stand in the way. And the big debate among would-be reformers is how to deal with those interests, especially the insurance companies. These companies played a secondary role in Truman's failure but have since become a seemingly invincible lobby.

Let's ignore those who believe that private medical accounts - basically tax shelters for the healthy and wealthy - can solve our health care problems through the magic of the marketplace. The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies.

A system in which the government provides universal health insurance is often referred to as "single payer," but I like Ted Kennedy's slogan "Medicare for all." It reminds voters that America already has a highly successful, popular single-payer program, albeit only for the elderly. It shows that we're talking about government insurance, not government-provided health care. And it makes it clear that like Medicare (but unlike Canada's system), a U.S. national health insurance system would allow individuals with the means and inclination to buy their own medical care.

The great advantage of universal, government-provided health insurance is lower costs. Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured.

Nonetheless, most reform proposals out there - even proposals from liberal groups like the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress - reject a simple single-payer approach. Instead, they call for some combination of mandates and subsidies to help everyone buy insurance from private insurers.

Some people, not all of them right-wingers, fear that a single-payer system would hurt innovation. But the main reason these proposals give private insurers a big role is the belief that the insurers must be appeased.

That belief is rooted in recent history. Bill Clinton's health care plan failed in large part because of a dishonest but devastating lobbying and advertising campaign financed by the health insurance industry - remember Harry and Louise? And the lesson many people took from that defeat is that any future health care proposal must buy off the insurance lobby.

But I think that's the wrong lesson. The Clinton plan actually preserved a big role for private insurers; the industry attacked it all the same. And the plan's complexity, which was largely a result of attempts to placate interest groups, made it hard to sell to the public. So I would argue that good economics is also good politics: reformers will do best with a straightforward single-payer plan, which offers maximum savings and, unlike the Clinton plan, can easily be explained.

We need to do this one right. If reform fails again, we'll be on the way to a radically unequal society, in which all but the most affluent Americans face the constant risk of financial ruin and even premature death because they can't pay their medical bills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?pagewanted=print

[andymoon]

I, like Krugman, prefer the term "single payer" to "universal health care." If the government had a single payer system, the pressure would be on the private insurers to improve their service, drop their prices, or go away.

A friend of mine had to have an emergency appendectomy a few years ago and his bill (he was uninsured) was astronomical. He talked to the hospital and told them that he would not pay a penny over what insurance companies paid and his bill dropped to half of the original. When he had a lawyer send a letter saying basically the same thing (at a whopping cost of $100), the cost dropped by half again to a grand total of 25% of the original.

With a single payer system, we could get those kinds of rates on all medical procedures and treatment as the system would keep the pressure on the providers to keep their costs low.

We once had the best health care in the world, but those days are long past. We could have the best in the world again, but that will not happen so long as health care costs continue to rise while our salaries and benefits continue to fall.

[Sishir Chang]

I seem to recall this statistic posted somewhere on the BBS but under our system don't we both pay more per capita for health care even though we have far more people than most industrialized country without insurance while at the same time are performing lower on several health indicators?

[pirc1]

I seem to recall this statistic posted somewhere on the BBS but under our system don't we both pay more per capita for health care even though we have far more people than most industrialized country without insurance while at the same time are performing lower on several health indicators?

Yes, I remember seeing the same thing. Highest % of GDP spend on health care but lowest on just about every statistical measures among G7 I believe.

[wnes]

I seem to recall this statistic posted somewhere on the BBS but under our system don't we both pay more per capita for health care even though we have far more people than most industrialized country without insurance while at the same time are performing lower on several health indicators?

I am sure deepblue can answer that. But if he's unwilling to do it, I'll repost the stuff later..