You have stats for people with jobs in the UK as compared with USA? I have a stat, they pay 50% in taxes. What are your stats?
Give me a standard that only involves those with jobs that pay taxes and cannot be swayed by culture or race.
I paid 39% in taxes plus all of my healthcare cost. Guess what, that's a wash. The only thing is, if I lose my job, I'm ****ed. If they lose their job, they continue to get medical care.
Wow, many things wrong with this. First, your artificial method of gaming the numbers is pretty stupid. Can we say that Zimbabwe has a great health care system since Robert Mugabe can afford any health care he wants? By your definition the answer is yes. (oh, maybe I should invite you to move to Zimbabwe...!) Second, pretty much everybody in the US pays taxes either directly or indirectly, bro, even illegal aliens. So this one qualifier is out the window. Anyway please explain "swayed by culture or race" - this ought to be good and offensive. WOHOOO R-O-C-K IN THE USA!!!!
Things such as obesity or life expectancy when comparing systems. Our culture is probably the worst for taking care of ourselves and Dr.'s cannot stop that. Race is a huge factor in life expectancy even in the same culture. I was not even aware I gave any numbers. Excluding sales tax I doubt someone getting full medical would ever pay back more than they get.
No - why don't you give some. You've been posting in this thread for days proclaiming that the US has the best medical care ever - why don't you back it up? Flip a few pages back in the thread - as many have noted, lots of us pay in tons of money every year and get very little or nothing back. And what we do get back has 30% skimmed off the top to pay for administrative expenses and marketing.
so that was a lie on your part or.....? why do you have to give medical coverage to everyone to get rid of this 30%?
Wow, all this time I thought that I did have a job, that I worked, that paid me money, that I was obligated to pay personal income taxes on. Silly me! I don't understand how my situation is any different than Joe Blow down the street that works full time. If I discontinue making money, I can only make my insurance premiums until I run out of savings. Then I'm uninsured. If Joe Blow gets fired, he can only make COBRA payments until he runs out of savings. Then he is uninsured. How is this any different?
Because joe blow is an honest god-fearing american, not a pansy commie like yourself! He's proud of his inability to be treated for strep throat! He demands all other nation's have strep throat too!
Your idea of helping others is to take my money. You are not helping me afford my own health care. But that's not my biggest problem with all of this. My problem is government spending actually driving up the prices for everyone. That is not helping the less fortunate. None of this insane government spending is.
Jesus Casey, Are you allergic to supporting your position with some actual data. Here's another opportunity for you. Why don't you tell us how many people in Canada/France/England/Japan/Germany/Australia/Sweden/Switzerland/Etc. have to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills. Medical bills trigger half of all bankruptcies Study finds most bankruptcy filers had health insurance The Associated Press BOSTON - Costly illnesses trigger about half of all personal bankruptcies, and most of those who go bankrupt because of medical problems have health insurance, according to findings from a Harvard University study to be released Wednesday. Researchers from Harvard’s law and medical schools said the findings underscore the inadequacy of many private insurance plans that offer worst-case catastrophic coverage, but little financial security for less severe illnesses. “Unless you’re Bill Gates, you’re just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of medicine. “Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick.” The study, to be published online Wednesday by the journal Health Affairs, distributed questionnaires to 1,771 bankruptcy filers in 2001 in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. That year, there were 1.46 million personal bankruptcies in the United States. More than 900 of those questioned underwent more detailed interviews about their financial and medical circumstances for what the authors say is the first in-depth study of medical causes of personal bankruptcies, which have risen rapidly in recent years. Illness and medical bills were cited as the cause, at least in part, for 46.2 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the study. Himmelstein said the figure rose to 54.5 percent when three other factors were counted as medical-related triggers for bankruptcies: births, deaths and pathological gambling addiction. The study estimates medical-caused bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans each year, counting debtors and their dependents, including 700,000 children. Most were insured Most of those seeking court protection from creditors had health insurance, with more than three-quarters reporting they had coverage at the start of the illness that triggered bankruptcy. The study said 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy, with illness frequently leading to the loss of both a job and insurance. Out-of-pocket medical expenses covering co-payments, deductibles and uncovered health services averaged $13,460 for bankruptcy filers who had private insurance at the onset of illness, compared with $10,893 for those without coverage. Those who initially had private coverage but lost it during their illness faced the highest cost, an average of $18,005. “We need to rethink health reform,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a study co-author and associate professor of medicine at Cambridge-based Harvard. “Covering the uninsured isn’t enough. We also must upgrade and guarantee continuous coverage for those who have insurance.” Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, representing nearly 1,300 health insurance providers, said the study did not adequately explore the role that disability income protection plans and personal savings can play in helping someone with a medical problem avoid bankruptcy. “It’s very important to ask questions about what the financial stressors are for American families, but we don’t think this study digs deeply enough,” Pisano said. Middle-class hit hard The findings indicate medical-related bankruptcies hit middle-class families hard — 56 percent of the filers owned a home, and the same number had attended college. “Families with coverage faced unaffordable co-payments, deductibles and bills for uncovered items like physical therapy, psychiatric care and prescription drugs,” Himmelstein said. The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, did not examine how many bankruptcy filers were from dual-income families where both partners had insurance, Himmelstein said. Jeff Morris, resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute, founded by Congress in 1982 to analyze bankruptcy trends, said the Harvard findings roughly mirror those of a 1996 ABI study in which 57 percent of bankruptcy filers cited medical problems as a primary bankruptcy cause. Respondents in that study were more likely to cite three other factors as primary causes, including easy access to credit, job loss and financial mismanagement. Morris said he was aware of no data indicating that the Harvard study, which was based on 2001 bankruptcy filings, does not accurately reflect current trends in medical-related bankruptcies. “Medical coverage is becoming more for catastrophic loss than for intermediate expenses,” Morris said. © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/
The US, with free market medical care, spends twice as much as other countries, with nationalized medical care. The best part of all of this is the fact that when those countries spend HALF as much on medical care, they get far better results than we do spending twice as much. Your argument that government spending will drive prices up for everyone does not make sense.
Uhh ok so you are saying that. 1. UK has the same rate of income tax as USA right? Because you said you basically paid 50% when I told you that a normal working person in the UK pays 50% 2. You pay the same amount as a person with a normal salary job. You pay much more because you pay the total amount instead of your company paying part of it like me. If you are not making either of these statements then WTF are you saying.
If you disagree that culture and race corresponds to obesity and death rates I will give you some data to prove it. If not then I do not understand your point.
OK then your argument is we can get more for less. Why no do this. LOWER COSTS, THEN increase benefits.
It's your claim - please provide some support for it. Once you take out the profit motive a lot of the administrative burden is lifted. Marketing, product design, etc all take big hits.
I'm saying that if you add up taxes paid in countries with nationalized healthcare and compared it to the taxes paid in the US plus all of the associated costs of healthcare, it would pretty much be a wash. The difference in the other countries is that they continue to have healthcare even if something happens to their job. I do not agree that a job should be a prereq for getting healthcare, that is asinine. If you really think that the company is not passing that cost on to you in some form or fashion then you are deluded. It is usually in the form of lower pay. You may see less coming out of your check than I do but I guarantee you are paying for it in some way. - Most full time employees make less money than a non full time employee. - These full time employees usually also pay less toward medical coverage. - There is a delta between the money made by a full time employee and the non full time employee. - There is also a delta between the money paid for medical coverage between those same employees. Do you really think that in the grand scheme of things that there is this gigantic difference at the end of the day between these two people?
Medicare, Medicaid and so on has already driven up the prices and infected the free market. That's why people are now crying for the gov to pay it all. However, the government spending insures wasteful quantity of care, not quality.
