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It's morning in America,Once Again


ellapenella

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41 minutes ago, Yamato said:

Did they offer any other alternatives but medication or was it a drug or nothing?   And if it was a drug or nothing, did she do nothing?    Curious what the issue was and what the "five or six" options are.

It was something to do with a specific chemical imbalance in her uterus, or something similar. I do believe they offered something else, like massage, or something, but being from America, she wanted a medication.

Point is that in controlled healthcare, options are usually fewer.

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12 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

It was something to do with a specific chemical imbalance in her uterus, or something similar. I do believe they offered something else, like massage, or something, but being from America, she wanted a medication.

Point is that in controlled healthcare, options are usually fewer.

Do they offer something else here, like massage?   I'm guessing by this response you don't know what the other five options were so I don't think the point was well made.  

"Being from America she wanted a medication."  No doubt in my mind there though.

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13 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

Well, no matter how big a kick you get from saying that, it is still the wrong path.

And I know that Communists love saying that, because you are telling people that their choice is to be Alive or Free. "Be my slave, or be dead"

And I can see it getting to the point where Das Reich demands control of 100% of all resources to ensure that .000000001% of the population can be protected from death.... something that is inevitable and most terrifying to people who have no spirituality whatsoever. People with no connection to anything spiritual will live only for themselves and have no compunction to making even their own babies into deabt-slves to cover their every whim in the here & now because what the hell right? Anything that comes after your very limited life matters nothing at all to such people.

Nihilism as a matter of State Policy, in other words. 

#1- prices have skyrocketed under this Socialist Plan we are living under now, as predicted by the Right and in direct opposition to the stated goal by those who created ObamaCare.

#2 - if everyone dies because the heathcare costs get too high, a market correction can indeed take care of that. ir; if all their patients are dying, the industry will die too. You would think that anyone old enough to vote would be aware of this sort of logic.

#3- isn't there any way to encourage people to be more productive that the Left can find anything good about? 

 

Welcome to the Idiocracy -

 

 

Look, basically every other 1st world nation on earth has a single payer style health care system and they make it work. Forcing our companies to pay for our healthcare actually hamstrings us from a business global competitiveness standpoint.

The private market works great for things that are not life and death issues, healthcare is simply not one of those things. The private market is not the best for healthcare, the insurance companies simply take money from people and put it into their own pockets and offer no actual healthcare value to consumers for it, they just cause prices to increase because they need to make a profit. What I would like to see is either non-profit healthcare insurance firms set up to compete with the for profit ones (like credit unions do with banks), or a single payer like system for basics augmented by private insurance that covers other things.

Some people tried, but failed, it would seem that the fedgov is biased in favor of for-profit insurance companies, go figure.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/10/15/why-5-new-nonprofit-health-insurance-cooperatives-failed-to-thrive-the-federal-undermining-of-a-field-of-nonprofits/

 

So the other option is single payer but set up and executed differently than medicare and other wasteful programs. Most other nations have figured it out, yet the US can't? Or the US just won't because of right wing propaganda about the infallibility of the private market (evidence to the contrary specifically related to the health care industry be damned)

I am not a communist, I am a pragmatist, and it is clear a for profit private healthcare industry is going to result in a lot of people not affording care and a lot of those people dying as a result. I care about the results of the system we have, not the ideology behind it. If you can find a way to make a for profit system that has lower cost, covers everyone, and works reasonably well for everyone I will be all for it. I have yet to see anything that can possibly do this in the private market, simply because without an individual mandate of some kind young healthy people will not get insurance and people who need insurance the most will wind up paying a lot more because the cost is not being offset by the younger healthy people. It is just basic math. And when you account for the fact that our population is aging and becoming sicker it is clear why costs are skyrocketing and would be even without ACA (something people seem to forget).

 If we go down that path then let us be clear about the results we expect and state them bluntly- that we as a society are okay with lower costs for healthy and young people, that we are okay with charging the sick and elderly more for insurance, that we are okay with paying huge sums for prescription drugs. We are okay with lining the pockets of insurance companies rather than having more of that money go towards actual health care products, and we are okay with the fact that millions of people will not be able to afford care and many of them will die earlier than they otherwise would have because of it. I for one am not okay with those things, but that is what the private market does to the healthcare industry. That is why basically every other country on earth has moved on to a single-payer like system. Single payer is flawed, absolutely, but it is less flawed than the private system.

I am young and healthy and I wish that more of my money was going towards healthcare for the sick and elderly, because I know that I will one day be sick/elderly myself and I sure hope that I am either A)wealthy by then so I can afford the care I need, or B)we have a system that works for the sick and the elderly and not just the young and healthy.

 

Edited by Einsteinium
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10 hours ago, DieChecker said:

If we look at Medicare, we see that it has 55 million people enrolled. That's 17% of the US population. And it takes 15% of the US Federal Budget.

That is largely because most of the people who use Medicare are the elderly and the disabled, so they are going to cost a lot to provide care for. Insuring everyone would be a different animal, as it would bring a huge number of young healthy people into the pool and offset a lot of this cost. The 'tax increase' to enable this would have to be less than the cost of Medicare+(insert your private insurance here) and I don't think it should cover everything, just the basics and emergency related stuff. If you want additional coverage then you would have to purchase private insurance for those things yourself to augment a single payer system.

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21 hours ago, Yamato said:

Do they offer something else here, like massage?   I'm guessing by this response you don't know what the other five options were so I don't think the point was well made.  

"Being from America she wanted a medication."  No doubt in my mind there though.

Pharmaceutical options. My point was that she got Drug A in the US, when she was pregnant, because she was allergic to Drug B. In Astralia her only drug related option was B, and A was not an option. So she was left with taking a drug that would cause her an allergic reaction, or going with an Alternative form of medicine. 

Point being, options are lost when medicine is socialized. 

I believe her actual choice she made was to get Drug A from the US and pay for it entirely out of pocket.

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11 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

That is largely because most of the people who use Medicare are the elderly and the disabled, so they are going to cost a lot to provide care for. Insuring everyone would be a different animal, as it would bring a huge number of young healthy people into the pool and offset a lot of this cost. The 'tax increase' to enable this would have to be less than the cost of Medicare+(insert your private insurance here) and I don't think it should cover everything, just the basics and emergency related stuff. If you want additional coverage then you would have to purchase private insurance for those things yourself to augment a single payer system.

I agree. That is how it would work in an ideal situation. How often does legislation in the US work ideally?

So... What can we expect? 25%... 40%... 60%, of the Fed Budget going to healthcare? What is it in other nations?

I've heard Sweden has nice healthcare, and employment controls, and housing controls, and they also take something like 60% of everyone's income to pay for it all. I'm not sure if that is adjusted by income or not, but if not, then I sure believe the people who are in the poverty range are going to throw a holy fit. Right now I have a good house, a good job, and good insurance... because I worked for it. And I pay maybe $7K, or $8K a year, (including local property taxes) which is just less the 10% of my income. I really, really, really am not going to like paying 60% and getting the exact same house, job, insurance. That there is the problem. A LOT of people aren't going to think this is a good deal.

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6 hours ago, DieChecker said:

Pharmaceutical options. My point was that she got Drug A in the US, when she was pregnant, because she was allergic to Drug B. In Astralia her only drug related option was B, and A was not an option. So she was left with taking a drug that would cause her an allergic reaction, or going with an Alternative form of medicine. 

Point being, options are lost when medicine is socialized. 

I believe her actual choice she made was to get Drug A from the US and pay for it entirely out of pocket.

So drug A actually was available for her in Australia after all and her options weren't limited as it turned out.  The only difference was the price.   If she could get that drug from Australia she must have gotten a prescription from a doctor there.

If government subsidized healthcare is socialized medicine then everyone should be paying out of pocket.   The price would go down, but many people still wouldn't be able to afford services or drugs and they wouldn't be an option for them.  

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10 hours ago, DieChecker said:

I agree. That is how it would work in an ideal situation. How often does legislation in the US work ideally?

So... What can we expect? 25%... 40%... 60%, of the Fed Budget going to healthcare? What is it in other nations?

I've heard Sweden has nice healthcare, and employment controls, and housing controls, and they also take something like 60% of everyone's income to pay for it all. I'm not sure if that is adjusted by income or not, but if not, then I sure believe the people who are in the poverty range are going to throw a holy fit. Right now I have a good house, a good job, and good insurance... because I worked for it. And I pay maybe $7K, or $8K a year, (including local property taxes) which is just less the 10% of my income. I really, really, really am not going to like paying 60% and getting the exact same house, job, insurance. That there is the problem. A LOT of people aren't going to think this is a good deal.

I think if the system requires people to pay in 60% of their income that is a completely insane and broken system.

I also have a good house, good job, and good insurance and I also worked for it. I paid for my college education myself and I worked full time while going to school full time to make it work.

 

However I recognize that the population dynamics are changing, the baby boomer generation really is going to stress the system immensely. The greatest generation had a lot of kids and those kids paid for the greatest generations govt. benefits, but the boomers did not have as many kids and so they do not have this huge % gain in young healthy people paying taxes to pay for all of their govt. benefits. This really is the core of our healthcare issues right now. ACA tried the individual mandate to force young healthy people into the insurance market to offset this growing cost, if we remove the individual mandate costs are going to skyrocket for the sick and the elderly because young and healthy people will no longer be subsidizing their care to a great degree. I have yet to see a serious attempt by the republicans to actually try to fix this somehow, and without an individual mandate of some kind I don't think it can be fixed with a private insurance marketplace, it really is just basic math. I just hope that my mom has enough money to pay for whatever care she needs, and if not I hope I have saved enough to help her out. I really hope that when I am elderly this has been solved and I know what to expect. One thing driving up costs right now in the uncertainty of what is going to happen. ACA was never allowed to fully be implemented as designed and was hamstringed in many ways by the republicans who wanted to ensure it would fail so they could blame the failure on the democrats. We never got to see what ACA would have truly yielded in terms of long term results.

I really wish politics could be put aside on healthcare and the politicians would actually work on a solid bill that would be best for the country, rather than playing political football with it.

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On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

Look, basically every other 1st world nation on earth has a single payer style health care system and they make it work. Forcing our companies to pay for our healthcare actually hamstrings us from a business global competitiveness standpoint.

Overall, this was a hell of a good post!

I will pick at it w/o shortening it just in case my post  ends up starting a new page.

 

I say just the opposite. 

The Private systems are what brought US healthcare to the standard of excellence that makes it stand out today. World leaders and anyone else that could do so have been coming here a very long time with all sorts of odd problems. 

ALSO - our standards give the rest of the world something to strive for. Instead of being able to say "Well, at least we are on a par with the US." they have to explain why they aren't that good yet, and keep striving to be better.

Oh... maybe that is why the rest of the world wants us to go Socialist so bad, and keep lobbying for that and giving guys like Obama Nobel prizes just for trying.

IMHO, the USA was born to be different, an alternative to the way the rest of the world does things. 

Just in case they all go to pot, wouldn't it be nice to have somebody still standing, to help pick up the pieces?

On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

The private market works great for things that are not life and death issues, healthcare is simply not one of those things. The private market is not the best for healthcare, the insurance companies simply take money from people and put it into their own pockets and offer no actual healthcare value to consumers for it, they just cause prices to increase because they need to make a profit. What I would like to see is either non-profit healthcare insurance firms set up to compete with the for profit ones (like credit unions do with banks), or a single payer like system for basics augmented by private insurance that covers other things.

Some people tried, but failed, it would seem that the fedgov is biased in favor of for-profit insurance companies, go figure.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/10/15/why-5-new-nonprofit-health-insurance-cooperatives-failed-to-thrive-the-federal-undermining-of-a-field-of-nonprofits/

I don't agree with the idea that everyone that pockets money is by definition Evil. I also don't think that Doctors will be motivated to work as hard as they do and that corporations will be motivated to risk millions or put the work into crating new and better things if they are not allowed to profit from them.

Period. 

On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

So the other option is single payer but set up and executed differently than medicare and other wasteful programs. Most other nations have figured it out, yet the US can't? Or the US just won't because of right wing propaganda about the infallibility of the private market (evidence to the contrary specifically related to the health care industry be damned)

See above.

And if you are damning the entire Healthcare industry, shall we go into the usual laundry list of Horror stories about what GOvt healthcare is really like over there?

I already live with one example of US GOvt healthcare; the V.A.

Wanna hear about it? 

On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

I am not a communist,

GOOD!

Glad to hear it, but I have heard that before from people who turn right around and defend all of the actual principles and operating methods of Communism.

So, forgive my skeptical nature, but I have been down this path many times before. 

On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

I am a pragmatist, and it is clear a for profit private healthcare industry is going to result in a lot of people not affording care and a lot of those people dying as a result. I care about the results of the system we have, not the ideology behind it. If you can find a way to make a for profit system that has lower cost, covers everyone, and works reasonably well for everyone I will be all for it. I have yet to see anything that can possibly do this in the private market, simply because without an individual mandate of some kind young healthy people will not get insurance and people who need insurance the most will wind up paying a lot more because the cost is not being offset by the younger healthy people. It is just basic math. And when you account for the fact that our population is aging and becoming sicker it is clear why costs are skyrocketing and would be even without ACA (something people seem to forget).

Prices were rising, but not nearly the way they are Skyrocketing under ObamaCare!  That is something that people seem to have a huge blind spot about.

The easiest thing for Trump to do now is to let Obamacare collapse, as it is starting to do already. Easy, and cruel, but it would drive the message home with absolute certainty. 

Apparently, Trump is too nice a guy to do that... I wouldn't be. I know that there is nothing that Trump could do that would gain him anything from the Left other than more blind hate. Hell, they are even starting to go after his unborn grandson. What trash. 

 

HOWEVER- yes, there have been some obscene profit taking crimes committed in that industry; have you seen what an Epi-Pen sells for today?

Don't we have anti-trust laws in the USA? How about enfocting the laws we have, instead of constantly enrishing the Letigious Class by making more every day?

And about that Epi-pen scandal; FDA rules were telling them that nobody could market a successor until they could prove a demonstrable improvement, thus granting the crooks their monopoly. Seems to me we could live with LESS regulation these days, eh?

 

On 5/8/2017 at 10:31 AM, Einsteinium said:

 If we go down that path then let us be clear about the results we expect and state them bluntly- that we as a society are okay with lower costs for healthy and young people, that we are okay with charging the sick and elderly more for insurance, that we are okay with paying huge sums for prescription drugs. We are okay with lining the pockets of insurance companies rather than having more of that money go towards actual health care products, and we are okay with the fact that millions of people will not be able to afford care and many of them will die earlier than they otherwise would have because of it. I for one am not okay with those things, but that is what the private market does to the healthcare industry. That is why basically every other country on earth has moved on to a single-payer like system. Single payer is flawed, absolutely, but it is less flawed than the private system.

I am young and healthy and I wish that more of my money was going towards healthcare for the sick and elderly, because I know that I will one day be sick/elderly myself and I sure hope that I am either A)wealthy by then so I can afford the care I need, or B)we have a system that works for the sick and the elderly and not just the young and healthy.

 

Insurance is a gamble, for the provider. it is complex and it would be more words than I want to see... ever, but their support for Obamacare at the outiset is easy to see; it was a law that forced everyone to buy their product.

Are we seeing the problem there?

Evan Ayn Rand reserved the category of Crony-Capitalist for the very worst of the worst, and for good reason.

 

And once again, I have to call into question the notion of concentrating all power and all resources into the hands of the Government.

Yes, there are things that only the Govt can do best, and a universal system of Justice is the most indispensable one. That is also the first to suffer when corruption becomes the norm... and don't tell me that it isn't when a ex-president gets handed 60 million for a frakking book deal on his way out the door!!

 

You know what the best way to avoid Govt corruption is? Keep the pay low, like it used to be here. Sure, they had a golden parachute for retirement, but those guided by greed had to go into Business and compete with people just like themselves. The worst sort that went into Govt were megalomaniacs who got their kicks pushing other people around. Now, we have both, and you want them to be able to ration healthcare and sit on Death Panels too?

(both were loudly denied, until those provisions were removed oh-so-quietly)

I think that's just too much.

And you may never need to worry about old age. The next Democrat to become President will probably go to war with Russia.  :unsure:

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16 hours ago, Yamato said:

So drug A actually was available for her in Australia after all and her options weren't limited as it turned out.  The only difference was the price.   If she could get that drug from Australia she must have gotten a prescription from a doctor there.

If government subsidized healthcare is socialized medicine then everyone should be paying out of pocket.   The price would go down, but many people still wouldn't be able to afford services or drugs and they wouldn't be an option for them.  

No. She flew to the US, got a diagnosis and prescription. Paid full price for the drug and had it shipped to Australia. Doubtless it had to go through paperwork to be allowed in, but that is what she did. It was NOT available in Australia... at all.

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12 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

I think if the system requires people to pay in 60% of their income that is a completely insane and broken system.

I also have a good house, good job, and good insurance and I also worked for it. I paid for my college education myself and I worked full time while going to school full time to make it work.

 

However I recognize that the population dynamics are changing, the baby boomer generation really is going to stress the system immensely. The greatest generation had a lot of kids and those kids paid for the greatest generations govt. benefits, but the boomers did not have as many kids and so they do not have this huge % gain in young healthy people paying taxes to pay for all of their govt. benefits. This really is the core of our healthcare issues right now. ACA tried the individual mandate to force young healthy people into the insurance market to offset this growing cost, if we remove the individual mandate costs are going to skyrocket for the sick and the elderly because young and healthy people will no longer be subsidizing their care to a great degree. I have yet to see a serious attempt by the republicans to actually try to fix this somehow, and without an individual mandate of some kind I don't think it can be fixed with a private insurance marketplace, it really is just basic math. I just hope that my mom has enough money to pay for whatever care she needs, and if not I hope I have saved enough to help her out. I really hope that when I am elderly this has been solved and I know what to expect. One thing driving up costs right now in the uncertainty of what is going to happen. ACA was never allowed to fully be implemented as designed and was hamstringed in many ways by the republicans who wanted to ensure it would fail so they could blame the failure on the democrats. We never got to see what ACA would have truly yielded in terms of long term results.

I really wish politics could be put aside on healthcare and the politicians would actually work on a solid bill that would be best for the country, rather than playing political football with it.

So if someone is REALLY sick, can't they get on Social Security and Medicare? The elderly also have Medicare, right?

https://www.medicare.gov/sign-up-change-plans/decide-how-to-get-medicare/whats-medicare/what-is-medicare.html

Quote

Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people who are 65 or older, certain younger people with disabilities, and people with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a transplant, sometimes called ESRD).

Are these not the people that you are talking about? They already have socialized insurance.... Medicare.

Do you simply mean the elderly that are not yet 65? And those with preexisting conditions that are not allowed under Medicare? Wouldn't it be simpler to expand Medicare (again) and include more people (Who don't already have, or can afford, their own insurance) who fall into those catagories? Rather then try to fumble bumble a bunch of forced insurance options and regulate that everyone has gynecological insurance?

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Wickedpedia, as ever, has a useful table (if you can make it out) an interesting table about taxation all around the world. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Perhaps there's something to be said for N. Korea, the maximum rate of tax there is just 20%! Russia and Switzerland are only 13%, and there's none at all in Bahamas, Kuwait, Qatar and S. Arabia!  

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3 hours ago, DieChecker said:

No. She flew to the US, got a diagnosis and prescription. Paid full price for the drug and had it shipped to Australia. Doubtless it had to go through paperwork to be allowed in, but that is what she did. It was NOT available in Australia... at all.

I have to wonder if there are less of these allergies in Australia or perhaps higher mortality rates in Australia for this particular allergy.   I'm curious about these comparative statistics for any health condition actually, and the US vs any western country.

What are the costs to the health of Aussies for having less drugs available in Australia.   And of course, what are the benefits.

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22 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

I think if the system requires people to pay in 60% of their income that is a completely insane and broken system.

I also have a good house, good job, and good insurance and I also worked for it. I paid for my college education myself and I worked full time while going to school full time to make it work.

 

However I recognize that the population dynamics are changing, the baby boomer generation really is going to stress the system immensely. The greatest generation had a lot of kids and those kids paid for the greatest generations govt. benefits, but the boomers did not have as many kids and so they do not have this huge % gain in young healthy people paying taxes to pay for all of their govt. benefits. This really is the core of our healthcare issues right now. ACA tried the individual mandate to force young healthy people into the insurance market to offset this growing cost, if we remove the individual mandate costs are going to skyrocket for the sick and the elderly because young and healthy people will no longer be subsidizing their care to a great degree. I have yet to see a serious attempt by the republicans to actually try to fix this somehow, and without an individual mandate of some kind I don't think it can be fixed with a private insurance marketplace, it really is just basic math. I just hope that my mom has enough money to pay for whatever care she needs, and if not I hope I have saved enough to help her out. I really hope that when I am elderly this has been solved and I know what to expect. One thing driving up costs right now in the uncertainty of what is going to happen. ACA was never allowed to fully be implemented as designed and was hamstringed in many ways by the republicans who wanted to ensure it would fail so they could blame the failure on the democrats. We never got to see what ACA would have truly yielded in terms of long term results.

I really wish politics could be put aside on healthcare and the politicians would actually work on a solid bill that would be best for the country, rather than playing political football with it.

On the issue of the mandate being removed, even if they remove it now, in the future it will probably be implemented in a different way and you'll probably see that in your paycheck. I always suspected Obamacare was just a deep hook to maintain a hold on the population and then get the ball rolling for eventual Universal Healthcare in the U.S. Much like they got the ball rolling for Social Security and SNAP benefits\food stamps. So it's more then likely it is here to stay, just like SS, but be modified over time and called something else.. In the years ahead both parties will probably experiment with it, change it here and there, pass new legislation and so on until they got it tuned to both of their liking.

So before long, everybody will probably see it the form of more taxes taken out of their paychecks for universal government healthcare. Whether it be on the Federal level are state level. They may extended it under Medicare for those working and under 65 for universal government healthcare coverage or you may even see them give it a whole new name and just add it along with the list of other things (SS, Medicare, Federal) they take taxes out of your paycheck for.

Anyway, if that's something you are fine with then I don't think you will have much to worry about when it comes to mandates and getting everybody involved for paying for government health care. They'll find a slickass way to do it (my example is just one of them), no matter which party is in power, that's what the government as a whole does.

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12 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

The Private systems are what brought US healthcare to the standard of excellence that makes it stand out today. World leaders and anyone else that could do so have been coming here a very long time with all sorts of odd problems.

Sure, as long as you can afford it or have good insurance which is what I have a problem with. Treating healthcare as a commodity literally results in people dying or living with terrible conditions that could be treated simply because they cannot afford it. That is a problem we need to solve, people who are crushed by debt just to stay alive are no longer free people, we have essentially stripped their freedom away from them for the sake of profitability- that is the core issue of the previous healthcare system we had and an issue that I have yet to hear a workable proposal for how to solve without some kind of individual mandate or tax.

Also, what makes you think our healthcare system is a stand out 'standard of excellence'? Last I checked we pay more per capita for our healthcare system and we are behind most other nations in terms of how healthy we are on average, so it would seem to me that for the vast majority of people our system is worse than most other nations.

I never said that having the govt. run a single payer baseline system was going to remove the profit motive, and I also think that doctors and people in the healthcare industry are not always looking for pure profit, but that insurance companies and executives push that onto them. Many doctors are motivated by *gasp* a true desire to help people, which can be stronger than any profit motive if it is encouraged and rewarded.

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12 hours ago, DieChecker said:

So if someone is REALLY sick, can't they get on Social Security and Medicare? The elderly also have Medicare, right?

Well of course, Medicare is a great option for those people and we all pay for it, we should be expanding it and funding it better in anticipation of the boomer generation signing up in droves for it, because it is not going to support the influx of people that are soon going to be on it given its current budget.

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12 hours ago, Yamato said:

I have to wonder if there are less of these allergies in Australia or perhaps higher mortality rates in Australia for this particular allergy.   I'm curious about these comparative statistics for any health condition actually, and the US vs any western country.

What are the costs to the health of Aussies for having less drugs available in Australia.   And of course, what are the benefits.

Your questions go way beyond my feeble knowledge in this area. Perhaps an Oz native could answer? I suspect that those with such allergies simply buy from overseas and take the hit. Or perhaps seek alternative medicines to the medication.

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3 hours ago, DieChecker said:

Your questions go way beyond my feeble knowledge in this area. Perhaps an Oz native could answer? I suspect that those with such allergies simply buy from overseas and take the hit. Or perhaps seek alternative medicines to the medication.

Socialized medicine -> less choices -> less health?    Are Canucks/Aussies/Kiwis less healthy than Yankees?    Alternatives are choices too.  Maybe they have choices we don't?  

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10 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

Also, what makes you think our healthcare system is a stand out 'standard of excellence'? Last I checked we pay more per capita for our healthcare system and we are behind most other nations in terms of how healthy we are on average, so it would seem to me that for the vast majority of people our system is worse than most other nations.

A problem caused by Obamacare. Costs have skyrocketed (to use Obama's own word) and the deductible is so high that most of the time you may as well not even bother, but pay out of pocket.... while paying triple what you used to pay for insurance at the same time.

Causing a problem just so you can implement your favorite solution should be illegal. 

10 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

I never said that having the govt. run a single payer baseline system was going to remove the profit motive, and I also think that doctors and people in the healthcare industry are not always looking for pure profit, but that insurance companies and executives push that onto them. Many doctors are motivated by *gasp* a true desire to help people, which can be stronger than any profit motive if it is encouraged and rewarded.

Well I would say that it goes without saying; you need to love what you do or you will never be very good at it.

And we have Doctors and Nurses that are pretty amazing.

However, a concrete expression of recognition is required, genuine respect in tangible form... not the occasional pat on the back or a 5-color thank-you card.

A pay-ckeck that is generous enough that they don't have to worry about their own finances is the best way that I know of, and one based on merit is the best of all. If you doubt me, just ask them.

It is the pharma Mega-Corps that need to be examined (as mentioned, we have anti-trust laws for that, on the books for 100 years now), as well as the free treatment options that force the Hospitals to change 50$ for an aspirin to make up the difference. 

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11 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

A problem caused by Obamacare.

Actually, no, this was a problem even before Obamacare.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.PCAP?locations=US

 

Just look at this image, costs were skyrocketing BEFORE ACA and continued to do so after ACA. 

And look at the other image, this was from 2009 BEFORE ACA, and again you see that the US spends more on healthcare per person than any other country measured.

 

I know, shocking how messed up our system was even BEFORE ACA. I would rather have single payer than ACA I think I have made that clear here.

 

Health expenditure per capita (current US$)  Data - Google Chrome_2017-05-11_09-31-39.jpg

49084355.jpg

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3 hours ago, Einsteinium said:

Actually, no, this was a problem even before Obamacare.

....

I know, shocking how messed up our system was even BEFORE ACA. I would rather have single payer than ACA I think I have made that clear here.

....

Indeed you have, and since you want to focus on that one thing backed up by those UN charts, I have to ask-

How has ObamaCare solved that problem thus far? What does the chart for last year look like?

 

And to add some related points;

I noticed that the bulk of the variance for the US is Private spending, if it weren't for that the expenditures would be roughly the same as for the rest of the above-average nations.

How much of that was elective stuff? How much was Plastic surgery and other self-indulgent treatments? 

 

Sorry, but I have been VERY skeptical of all these statistical itms since I learned that 80-90% of the people "killed" by guns every year in the US were actually suicides. 

What they leave out can be the most telling items of all. 

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