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Why our for profit health care system does not work!

imagep said:
Thats why I don't support socialized health care. However, I do support socialized health insurance.
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No one in their right mind should support socialized health care, because we already have all the infrastructure we need.
Countries that DID erect socialized systems often did so because it was apparent that government help in building out the infrastructure in places where it was deficient would speed the process altogether.
Canada was extremely rural and very spread out and remote at the time they instituted their system.
Britain was largely in ruins from World War Two when they set up theirs. Thus necessity was the mother of invention.
With the USA, all we need to straighten out is how to make it universally affordable and accessible. We already have the infrastructure in place.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Of course that didn't stop political apologist Frank Luntz from crafting the slogan "government takeover of health care", did it?
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Luntz is also responsible for "job creators".

He had a counterpart who wanted to teach how to counter persuasive messaging.

Unfortunately he gave up because the left decided to do it too instead.

I hope luntz enjoys the special place in hell built for his ilk.
 
apdst said:
The government can't run a healthcare system that serves 9 million people. How the hell is it going to run a system that serves 350 million?
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Medicare works for more than 9 million people and it works for me beautifully.

From where I sit your premise is false
 
Nap said:
Lol, Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the US. It helps to know what you are talking about, however it is understandable that a foreigner wouldn't know that.
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My observations that commenters who use LOL and its variants in the comments rarely know what they're talking about. Additionally those who rely on shaming others to puff themselves especially do not know what they are talking about
 
imagep said:
Thats why I don't support socialized health care. However, I do support socialized health insurance.
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What you are saying is called the one payer system. That is, you have Government paying the way and private companies providing the service.
 
OscarLevant said:
Medicare works for more than 9 million people and it works for me beautifully.

From where I sit your premise is false
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Other than building up a huge unfunded liability that is.


The financial hole for Medicare is even deeper. The Medicare hospital insurance trust fund will run out of reserves in 2026. Last year, the trustees expected the program’s reserves to last until 2029. Medicare has a second trust fund, for physician and outpatient services and for prescription drugs, that is permanently “solvent” because it has an unlimited tap on the general fund of the Treasury.
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OscarLevant said:
My observations that commenters who use LOL and its variants in the comments rarely know what they're talking about. Additionally those who rely on shaming others to puff themselves especially do not know what they are talking about
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You are a genius and astute observer. LOL
 
ataraxia said:
Building the MRI by the engineers, and reading the results by radiologists, is pretty meticulous, intensive, and high stakes work. These are pretty high tech devices. And think about the stakes of missing a tiny subtle area of cancer in the brain in the corner of one of the films- or perhaps worse yet, calling a funny-looking area cancer when it's really not.
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Umm Lasik surgery involves cutting into the eyeball and reshaping the cornea with freaking lasers.......
 
OscarLevant said:
My observations that commenters who use LOL and its variants in the comments rarely know what they're talking about. Additionally those who rely on shaming others to puff themselves especially do not know what they are talking about
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Saying healthcare is not regulated is a pretty hilarious statement, hence the LOL, feel free to point out where I am wrong.
 
independentusa said:
In a cost benefit analysis, the cost of the profit motive far out weighs the benefits. And do you really think that companies won't continue to do R&D< I don't. To stay in business they may have to do more rather than less.they can not just produce a new product and live for years off of their ability to overprice thei product.
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How do you expect to have any money to fund R&D if you don't have any profit?
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Sorry but you can't just hide behind a statement like "lifesaving or not" because it IS "or not" and by that I mean, it is accounted for differently and sold differently, and paid for differently. Every aspect of elective surgery is different.

You cannot "deregulate" cardiac bypass surgery" the way you deregulate Lasik.
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The price of surgery is not decided by whether it is life saving or not. A knee replacement can cost close to 30k which is significantly more than many "life saving" surgeries.
 
Nap said:
The price of surgery is not decided by whether it is life saving or not. A knee replacement can cost close to 30k which is significantly more than many "life saving" surgeries.
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Now you're deflecting. Elective surgeries can be deregulated somewhat.
It is possible to get knee replacement surgery at a walk-in clinic that does not operate in a hospital, or AS a hospital.
My own knee surgery was done in one of those "office clinics", and the first time was in 1985, thirty-three years ago.
Try getting open heart or cancer surgery, or brain surgery at one of those.

Now try telling me that open heart surgery runs thirty thousand.

LOL-ROR.jpg
 
independentusa said:
Anyone with a brain has to realize our present for profit health care system
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Very strange that you would characterize our health care system this way.

We have providers of service and providers of health care insurance. Both of these providers should be trying to provide the most health care at the least cost. Instead they try to provide the least amount of health care at the highest cost.
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Insurance companies are not trying to get the least amount of health care provided at the highest cost. They're trying to get necessary care provided at the lowest cost they can get providers to agree to, and to eliminate the provision of unnecessary care altogether.

And providers are certainly not trying to provide the least amount of care, they're trying to provide the most amount of care, as much as they can possibly justify.

Insurance companies are perhaps the only ones in the equation who have any real incentive to be continuously trying to control costs. Sick patients have zero desire to control cost or quantity of care. As long as they're "covered in full" for the rest of the year by whatever covers them, they don't care about cost.

And why can they do this, because of the lack of competition in health care in this country. When you want to buy a car you go around to several care dealers and get the most car you can afford at the least cost. NO one does that with health care.
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That's true, and it's because we've abdicated the price control responsibility to insurance companies in the rates they negotiate with our providers, and in the utilization review they perform, and so forth. We pay insurance companies to do our price-controlling for us. Why? Because we've apparently decided that we should not have to pay for health care at the point of service in the first place. We expect the insurance company to step in.

The ACA was basically a step toward multi-payer universal health care. It is not working that wonderfully, and I believe that is largely due to how entrenched we are in an employer-sponsored insurance system for the nation's non-government-covered population, as well as a few glitches that are getting in the way of progress. Those glitches can be fixed. We know what they are and legislation has been introduced that would fix them.
 
apdst said:
Even if it's going bankrupt?
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If it is, that is because republicans are sabotaging it (they removed the mandate), given that they do not want Obama to have a legacy, i mean, heaven forbid a black man does good for America.

When the dems win in 2020, and they will win, no LOLs, please, we won the house, and Trump is making it harder and harder for repubs to win, as time progress ( because he is incompetent ) when we win in 2020, we will fix it.
 
Nap said:
Saying healthcare is not regulated is a pretty hilarious statement, hence the LOL, feel free to point out where I am wrong.
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It was a generalization. People who use it tend to not be very smart. "Tend to".


I agree, it's regulated, as it must be.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
No one in their right mind should support socialized health care, because we already have all the infrastructure we need.
Countries that DID erect socialized systems often did so because it was apparent that government help in building out the infrastructure in places where it was deficient would speed the process altogether.
Canada was extremely rural and very spread out and remote at the time they instituted their system.
Britain was largely in ruins from World War Two when they set up theirs. Thus necessity was the mother of invention.
With the USA, all we need to straighten out is how to make it universally affordable and accessible. We already have the infrastructure in place.
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I've never really thought of it that way. Australia also has the issue of very remote regions. I'm still not sure I agree with your conclusion though; public healthcare as an alternative to private adds an important competitive element to the equation, especially in areas where the private option is literally a case of 'pay up or die.' Even real competition between multiple profiteering companies won't necessarily bring prices down as much as they could be in those cases.
 
Mithrae said:
I've never really thought of it that way. Australia also has the issue of very remote regions. I'm still not sure I agree with your conclusion though; public healthcare as an alternative to private adds an important competitive element to the equation, especially in areas where the private option is literally a case of 'pay up or die.' Even real competition between multiple profiteering companies won't necessarily bring prices down as much as they could be in those cases.
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See my last two sentences. I wasn't saying that the country can't use a few more clinics here and there. I'm saying that fully socialized health care systems usually consist of government owned and operated hospitals and NO free market medical, because the government had already built the system.
Many countries might use a system where the two operate alongside each other, with the free market system concentrating on elective surgeries and/or services for those who can afford to pay out of pocket to skip the line.
What I was getting at is, our main problem is affordability.
 
Nap said:
How do you expect to have any money to fund R&D if you don't have any profit?
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DO you realize how the tax system works for R&D. Profit is figured after you deduct all R&D costs from gross income. So if you say you need additional profit to pay for R&D and you will be getting paid twice for the same costs.
 
Nap said:
Umm Lasik surgery involves cutting into the eyeball and reshaping the cornea with freaking lasers.......
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Yeah sure. And it's still more expensive than a standard MRI most places I checked. What's your point?
 
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