BF2S Forums Universal Health Care

read the other 12 topics?

Yep, and the care given at my county hospital is excellent, possibly better than my own Kaiser plan - relatively speaking of course.  Be nice if that quality care was the same for the whole country.  47 million is alot of people...the state of california pretty much...i think.

Universal health care works great in France.  Most of the naysayers here (including doctors) have a vested interest in maintaining the profit-oriented nature of our healthcare here.

The main hurdle any socialized system would have in America (aside from all the propaganda against it) is the tax burden.  The only way France can maintain such a great system is through heavy taxation.  The only ways we could keep taxes the same here while instituting socialized healthcare would involve cutting military spending by half or phasing out Social Security.  I don't see those things happening anytime soon.

So basically, we can look forward to rising healthcare costs and more warfare.

Our national healthcare plan is "don't get sick."

CommieChipmunk wrote:

Terrible idea.  I just talked to the doctor I work for today and have spoken to others about it and they all say something along the lines of 'universal health care in America would be the end of health care as we know it'.  It just doesn't work... and we're in debt enough as it is and universal health care = long lines and worse service.  You have to pay for some things in life and health care is just one of those things -- though private insurance through employers is the way to go..

Just for comparison, the average doctor in Europe gets paid $100,000 in America it's $180,000 and there are extensive measures in place to restrict competition from foreign doctors who could happily undercut US doctors pay checks and drive down wages through competition. Moving to a UHC system with similar pay to western Europe would save $80,000,000,000 per year.

That's why healthcare workers in the US don't want UHC.

The biggest waste by far in the US system isn't anything to do with peple suing, it's the huge costs of administration in the US system. As you have hundreds of insurers with hundreds of policies with different clauses and rules, each hospital needs an army of administrators to process each person. the US systems runs at around 31% admin costs compaired to medicare which has 3% admin costs. A move to UHC from savings in admin costs alone would reduce healthcare costs by abour $350 billion. Add advertising, CEO pay, dividens for stockholders etc. the question of why the US healthcare costs are so high becomes very apparent.

Half of US bankrupcy cases cite medical expenses as the reason for bankrupcy, of them 75% actually had medical insurance.
""Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness."

The average bankrupt person surveyed had spent $13,460 on co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services if they had private insurance. People with no insurance spent an average of $10,893 for such out-of-pocket expenses.

"Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick," the researchers wrote. "

"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,"

Works better in smaller countries - especially socialist ones. You need money for it, and you have to get it somewhere. Furthermore, doctors would get payed less in the USA if there was social health care (most likely), so I don't think they'd agree to it.

That is not to say that I don't like the health care in the UK - I love it. I'm just not sure it would work too well in the USA. With the costs of your wars etc. the average tax payer is not willing to give more of his money to the government.

-konfusion

Burwhale the Avenger wrote:

In Australia Universal health care is not perfect, but it is a very good safety net for people that dont want private health care for whatever reason. We pay for health care (medicare) with the medicare levy, thats a part of our tax. However if we elect to use private health care we get a tax rebate, which is pretty fair, therefore those that do want private health cover dont have to pay as much Medicare levy.
I personally have private health cover, however I am glad our public health care is there to take care of people not as lucky as me.

That's a damn fine plan. Too bad it's not at all what Obama or Hillary are offering. No tax rebate if you don't participate.

Cameron Poe wrote:

Damn what a moron I am!!! I just checked the Irish revenue commissioners website and realised that I too can get a rebate for medical insurance. I haven't claimed in all my years of gainful employment!!

There ya go,  BF2S saves you cash. I  hope you can claim previous rebates retrospectivley ( probably not but worth a try)

Dersmikner wrote:

I'm fine with a government funded healthcare. Make it a separate system, with doctors who go to public medical schools and practice at government hospitals. Cap their income at 100 grand a year. See who you get signing up for that program and then we'll see how you like the quality of the healthcare. You can't get the uber-qualified superstars to work for 100 grand a year. You'll end up with shithead doctors. The brightest among us will go into business or law or something else and you'll end up with middle-of-the-roaders who aren't that great.

No sir. I want a STAR working on my spine when it's time, and I'll pay for the privilege.

Your highly priced star medical professionals are currently providing the US with the worst infant mortality rate in the rich western world.

The US healthcare system is ranked 37th in the world. The 'shithead doctors' in the rest of the world appear to be kicking the rich doctors asses. I want a doctor who's in the profession because they care about helping patients, not because they want to earn lots of cash.

Dersmikner wrote:

Healthcare statistics are bullshit. I know because it's my job to manipulate them EVERY day.

Here's a good one that's well publicized: Deliveries performed by Obstetricians are more than twice as likely to be complicated and/or end in fetal mortality as deliveries performed by midwives. Wow. The midwives pimp that stat like it's crazy.

Why is that?

Well, because at the first sign of a complication (any kind of preeclampsia, etc) the midwife calls in an Obstetrician. Midwives don't deal with ANY complicated deliveries. Therefore almost ALL the tricky deliveries are done by OBs. The real truth is that midwives are WAY worse than doctors and it should be about 10 times but the midwives have an uncanny knack of fucking up even the routine deliveries. Some are okay, but that's a good example of how healthcare stats are manipulated by those who have an agenda.

Why does the U.S. have the highest infant mortality rate? Because MANY MANY MANY more pregnancies are carried to term, or nearer term, than in the rest of the world. I can GUARANTEE you that a woman with gestational diabetes in India loses that baby at 5 months. A woman with gestational diabetes (like a woman who works at one of my client's office) might deliver that baby only to lose it. She had hers a month early and it passed away at a week old.

The infant mortality stat is a bullshit stat that is bent like a pretzel by those who are for universal healthcare. Look at the ENTIRE process, from impregnation to weening and you'll see that our medical system is far superior to the rest of the world.

In which industry do you work?

India, a country well known to be rich and western....

Looking at the whole process, the life expectancy figure for the US is right down at the bottom end of the rich western countries as well.

As I've pointed out before, all things considered, the relative US healthcare costs per person are 2-3 times that of any western country. With that amount of money the populace should live forever. That is unless there are crazy amounts of money being wasted on admin, pointlessly high wages, hugely overpriced drugs etc. If the US system had the same performance as the rest of the world it'd still be insanely wasteful.

My industry is scientific research.

Health care should be like car insurance, you pay based on your history/needs. Why should I pay for someone else who doesn't give a shit about them self?

I've experienced US government preventative healthcare in the military.  When my wife was pregnant we spent our own money to deliver in the private sector because the quality of doctors and especially nurses just was not on par with those on the outside.  The "free" government healthcare I received was "flight surgeons" who had just graduated from medical school, hadn't done an internship let alone a residency but was diagnosing and treating folks.  Good doctors, but certainly not stars (yet). 

From what I've read, the UK is importing more foreign doctors now becuase people that used to go to medical school (because it was a lucrative career) are simply finding other higher paying jobs.  I don't want a second rate surgeon sticking his/her hands in my chest fiddling with my heart, but that's just me.  Hopefully I would be able to do what wealthy people from Europe, Canada, and other countries who have socialized medicine do when they have a major problem...hop on a plane and head to a country that has top notch medical facilities.  Who knows where that will be in 5 years if the US gets its socialized healthcare system.

IRONCHEF wrote:

ReDevilJR wrote:

Health care should be like car insurance, you pay based on your history/needs. Why should I pay for someone else who doesn't give a shit about them self?

Well, the thing is, most people want to take care of our elderly, sick, and poor.  It's one of those crazy old "modern civilization" cultural thingies that most people throughout history dream of.  Youngsters don't understand it because they're outlook is focused on themselves, and nobody else.  But as you age, you start considering humanity, the people around you, etc.

Well, I know I was vague on my part explaining what I meant. I agree that yes, you should take care of the elders and the sick. But sick meaning that they are sick beyond their personal everyday control - as in eating healthy/exercising/not smoking... I have no problem hospitalizing the poor, and since they don't have any money, cannot pay for it. But the hospital is NOT a hotel for them, once they're discharged, they're on their own. I'm more of against paying for those obese people/smokers  that expect others to pay for their choices they made.

Last edited by ReDevilJR (2008-02-22 15:31:29)