The biggest thing for me is that this is WAY more financially sensible than what we doing now It is capitalism with enlightened self interest While What we have now is capitalism with personal short sighted self interest only Rocket River
No ones insurance is good. Even the big company companies are switching to High deductible plan. You might have out of network doctors who work in your in network hospital. Even the hospital doesn't know what something is going to cost.
The devil is in the details...... It took decades and generations for our peers to develop their systems. Right off the bat, it's no coincidence that healthcare costs have risen as American have gotten more obese and have aged. Old, fat people are expensive, just like veterans or the mentally ill. Universal health care isn't going to address the obesity issue....and frankly we shouldn't be subsidizing obesity to the extent we do. The simplest and most pragmatic thing to do is to expand Medicare Part A as basic liability. Many Americans are required to have basic auto liability, the same thing should be with healthcare. Ideally, US healthcare should have a public backbone with a private supplemental. I'm very much against all public or all private.
No other nation of people with anywhere near the level of abundance that we experience thinks so selfishly (and short-sighted), of course, many poorer nations do more to provide better care to the average citizen than we do despite the major discrepancy in wealth, which shows every time there is a study that compares different countries healthcare systems. The greatness in what half the country can access is lost over what the other half can't, in my eyes. In basketball terms, we're missing the fundamentals. When the fundamentals are missing, the team fails. When the team fails, everybody in the organization is impacted, whether or not they see it first hand, or even accept that they are a part of the team in the first place.
Healthcare was a made a right of all citizens when the government passed EMTALA in 1986. That’s the law that requires an emergency room to treat you even if you cannot pay. Ever since then we’ve had a fractured system trying to walk the line of for profit but with billions in uncompensated care causing costs to rise to those that do pay. It’s a farce and a failure and a laughingstock to the rest of the world who watch us spend way more money for way worse results. What I never get is people who say that the government will ration your care or reduce your choices if they are in control. Anyone with Medicare knows you have the option of basically any doctor or hospital unlike your typical HMO which requires approved doctors or health systems. I had an HMO once that wouldn’t pay for a prescription if it was at CVS, I had to go to Walgreens. Thinking that a publicly traded for profit middleman sucking out billions of dollars and standing between you and your doctor deciding where you can go and what procedure and medicine will be approved is somehow superior to single payer is beyond stupid.
When the Obamacare debate surfaced for an entire year (the one they "shoved down everyone's throats" in slow motion) there was quite a bit of research on costs. Fatties and smokers get bad press for being costly, but because they're likely to die sooner from heart disease or cancer, they're actually cheaper on the whole than old people who naturally live beyond 75. So the perverse reality to all this is that the elderly who are beyond their working prime take more from the system (prescription pills, chronic care, etc...) than those who abuse their bodies and usually croak a little bit after their prime. Longer life expectancies that skew towards an older population are inherently costly for a public health system. The biggest difference maker to cutting costs is End of Life treatment. Most people don't have this planned out, so they either go all in with experimental or costly low chance treatments that mostly prolongs the misery of the patient. And when it was discussed to prioritize hospice care over these hail mary treatments, it was painted as "pulling the plug on grandma", which is half accurate but doesn't really ask whether grandma wanted her dignity torn to shreds while she's unconscious and hooked up to a machine. When they say the Devil is in the Details, this one is the Great Satan that crosses party lines. Emotionally, no one wants to make this cost saving decision. So Bill Maher and his fat shaming can suck a big one. Fat people aren't the problem. They are a net equal or net positive to the system because of their prime earning years. The responsible (and lucky) ones are not.
You do know that Senators and Representatives are literally paid to make those programs as sh!tty as possible so that private corporation can move into those markets. . . .right? Rocket River
Doesn’t seem like it’s ever gonna happen. Might as well make a thread asking which monopoly piece you’d like to be when the game comes to life.
It shouldn't be tied to your job. Car accident and few days in hospital shouldnt bankrupt you and a band aid and billing shouldn't be $25. The billing system is broken. One job I have 'good insurance' pay 300 month family of 4 spend a few days in hospital and no charge. Change jobs get 'ok insurance' pay 400 a month and same hospital reason all same stuff and everything yet when I go now owe 17k? Umm ..
Let me be more clear. The VA is a system where the hospitals are public itself, not the insurance. That means the hospitals are government run. That isn't what I want with a single payer system. I want to maximize efficiency and our current system of multiple private networks is not efficient. We all know how insurance works. Insurance works by pooling and distributing risk. The larger the pool, the more risk is distributed. I want a national insurance system that has one giant pool of American tax payers that distributes risk amongst far more people making individual costs cheaper. The hospitals, clinics and pharmaceuticals will still be private for profit. This system would reduce the cost for everyone including those with good coverage currently through their employers.
You are just using a single study that looked at a narrow set of circumstances surrounding preventive care vs obesity. There are countless studies showing obesity's over sized impact on healthcare costs. It's not fat shaming, it just's the truth that obesity is expensive directly and indirectly. There is no argument that obesity is a good thing..... End of life is a huge costs, which I simply lumped into "aged population". Sure, it can apply to younger people too but it's mostly seniors. If we get policy for end of life.... that just means obesity will be a greater share of the rising costs. There are also a small percent of people that just love to go to the hospital, but the obese and the aged make up a significant portion of the population. I'm sorry but there is nothing positive about obesity. I'm not even religious and it's easy to see why gluttony is a sin. What about the environmental costs to eating more food than you could possibly need?
Having lived in Western Europe, amongst other places..... I can assure you that other nations think every bit as selfishly, and in some cases even more selfishly. The wealthy in Western Europe and when I was in the East.... were every bit (if not more) selfish and ruthless as those in the USA. The difference is that the USA is a younger nation and also it is a lot harder to change things in the USA politically. Which is a double edged sword. To be clear, I am not defending the US system, it is very flawed and is horrendous at providing preventative care, basic care and common sense approaches. However, when it comes to a lot of the measures such as fatality rate, etc.... there are other factors involved such as obesity, poorly regulated diets, poorly regulated contaminants and cultural issues that all need to be addressed. I support a single payor system, I just believe it will be a mixed bag overall and not be wonderful like some think. I have seen healthcare around the world and American expectations at time are unrealistic.
This is really overstated. There are a number of government programs that are net positives. I certainly do not think that the government should be involved in everything, but there are certain things that the government being involved in makes sense.
