Medicare for All

[dairygirl4u2c]

21 hours ago, PhuturePriest said:

There are apparently many options. 

 i prefer lemonade and tropical punch kool aid. orange and grape are also decent. 

[little2add]

43 minutes ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

 i prefer lemonade and tropical punch kool aid. orange and grape are also decent.  

cool-aid and cyanide 

[Nihil Obstat]

35 minutes ago, little2add said:

cool-aid and cyanide 

Yes, evidently bad things happen when you ignore reality and right reason in favour of blind adherence to a fundamentally flawed ideology.

[Anomaly]

19 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

Yes, evidently bad things happen when you ignore reality and right reason in favour of blind adherence to a fundamentally flawed ideology.

"Religion", LOL. 

 

The US system has problems, as does elsewhere.   Different problems, but it's not broken to the point it's non-functional.  No point in blindly calling it broken and replacing it with another flawed system.  

Stupid is still stupid, if you only changed its flavor.  

Health Insurance, like all insurance, is people paying for more than they need so others can get what they can't afford.  Having unlimited policies is fundamental idiocy.   Burdening the system with regulation and bureaucracy is costly.  Government is not inherently a system that dispenses fairness with dignity and respect. People do have a lot of responsibility for the natural consequences of their actions and inactions.    

We haven't fixed aspects in American Healthcare because we insist on arguing in hyperbole and exaggeration.  But hey, it keeps it interesting enough for tv, blogs, radio shows that can sell car and vacation ads. 

 

[Nihil Obstat]

4 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

The US system has problems, as does elsewhere.   Different problems, but it's not broken to the point it's non-functional.  No point in blindly calling it broken and replacing it with another flawed system.  

Stupid is still stupid, if you only changed its flavor.  

Health Insurance, like all insurance, is people paying for more than they need so others can get what they can't afford.  Having unlimited policies is fundamental idiocy.   Burdening the system with regulation and bureaucracy is costly.  Government is not inherently a system that dispenses fairness with dignity and respect. People do have a lot of responsibility for the natural consequences of their actions and inactions.    

We haven't fixed aspects in American Healthcare because we insist on arguing in hyperbole and exaggeration.  But hey, it keeps it interesting enough for tv, blogs, radio shows that can sell car and vacation ads. 

 

What the evidence indicates is that, while most healthcare systems worldwide have significant problems, the American system has some of the worst ratios of spending to outcomes. I am not saying anybody does it perfectly - in fact I said the opposite - but the American system has little going for it. I am not sure, though it would be beyond my competency to know - that fixing only certain aspects of the American system is enough. It may be a possibility, and certainly give it a shot, but I think intuitively that the fixing the real problems would probably reach right to the roots of the system itself.

I do not think that the government should dispense healthcare as a matter of ideology. Mostly I am predisposed against the concept. But the actual economic evidence is much more complex than broadly free market versus mixed versus command debates. And the healthcare economists I have learned from and studied do not seem to be ideological partisans so much as scientists, statisticians, and administrators who simply want to find out, for the first time in history, what works and why when it comes to healthcare.

I guess when it comes to healthcare economics I am more of a pragmatist than anything else. With some exceptions. But I am not going to defend the American system simply because it is American, and because Americans think and claim that it is somehow a free market system, which it is absolutely not.

[Anomaly]

There is so much to dig into as to why it is expensive in U S. 

Is it the cost of legal liability?  And why?  Do DR pay too much for insurance or is too much awarded or are bad DRs not removed?

Is there too much legal liability for  hospitals as well?   Same reasons? How does it compare with what happens in other systems?

Is medical training too onerous and expensive?   Is it greed or inefficiency in education systems?  Is it hindered by legal liability issues?

Do we over medicate or over treat because of legal reasons or is that just the culture of US citizens?  What are the expectations of when to see a DR and type of treatment compared to other cultures?

Do we over inflate expectations? How much treatment does the average 80 year old in US expect  vs other cultures for things like joint replacement, major surgeries, etc.?  Do ederly tend to live more often with the younger generations in other cultures and are less demanding spend $$$ for treatments to live independently?   Are their diets better and more active because they live with others?

    Is diet/weight and other health issues that are costly caused by life style habits in the U S?   I'm suspect high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, and diabetes are not as much a burden in the health system in countries that eat better and exercise more in their culture.   You can't blame insurance companies for that. 

There are so many additional factors to evaluate instead of just blaming the system of government and insurance companies.  As working middle class, me and my peers only have seen costs sky rocket after Obama Care was implemented.  We believed the ideology that any change just has to be better because what we had was "broken".   It is not better and cheaper now and we don't try to reasonably treat the disease.  

[little2add]

18 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

  It is not better and cheaper now

 

Right

Under obamacare

It far worse

Edited January 26, 2016 by little2add

[Nihil Obstat]

21 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

There is so much to dig into as to why it is expensive in U S. 

Is it the cost of legal liability?  And why?  Do DR pay too much for insurance or is too much awarded or are bad DRs not removed?

Is there too much legal liability for  hospitals as well?   Same reasons? How does it compare with what happens in other systems?

Is medical training too onerous and expensive?   Is it greed or inefficiency in education systems?  Is it hindered by legal liability issues?

Do we over medicate or over treat because of legal reasons or is that just the culture of US citizens?  What are the expectations of when to see a DR and type of treatment compared to other cultures?

Do we over inflate expectations? How much treatment does the average 80 year old in US expect  vs other cultures for things like joint replacement, major surgeries, etc.?  Do ederly tend to live more often with the younger generations in other cultures and are less demanding spend $$$ for treatments to live independently?   Are their diets better and more active because they live with others?

    Is diet/weight and other health issues that are costly caused by life style habits in the U S?   I'm suspect high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, and diabetes are not as much a burden in the health system in countries that eat better and exercise more in their culture.   You can't blame insurance companies for that. 

There are so many additional factors to evaluate instead of just blaming the system of government and insurance companies.  As working middle class, me and my peers only have seen costs sky rocket after Obama Care was implemented.  We believed the ideology that any change just has to be better because what we had was "broken".   It is not better and cheaper now and we don't try to reasonably treat the disease.  

Yeah, the answer to all those hypos is "yeah, probably." Which comes back to, essentially, that everything does not work to some extent. All we can really do is try to identify things that do work, whether in the US or another country, ask why they work, see if they can be applied, and then in American fashion, ignore them anyway.  But really, that is the idea; look at other policies, other philosophies, or simply other incentives, see what happens, try to discover why whatever happens does happen (not easy), then try to predict what would happen with that same policy or incentive in another context.

A good example was the investigation of the relationship between higher or lower insurance copayments and overutilization of medical care. To put it really briefly, yes higher copays reduce unnecessary utilization. Then the surprising part was that higher copays also reduce necessary utilization. That is the sort of problem healthcare economists encounter every day. Everything is unpredictable.

9 minutes ago, little2add said:

 

Right

Under obamacare

It far worse

Wow, much deep. Very poetry.

A faint clap of thunder
Clouded skies
Perhaps rain comes?
If so, will you stay here with me?

Here is a mistake: Do not get hung up on Obamacare. American healthcare is lame with or without Obamacare. The problems are deeper, and that is a red herring.

[little2add]

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/bending-productivity-curve-why-america-leads-world-medical-innovation

america leads the world in medical innovation

[superblue]

2 hours ago, little2add said:

 

Right

Under obamacare

It far worse

What is beyond the model of what is coming down the road under Obama care is the example of the V.A a literal government run medical establishment for Veterans of our military. Though those who voted for obamacare seem to just scoff at that ,as if to say, well since Obama didn't create the V.A obviously that won't happen under what he created ( which/// Obama didn't even create this new healthcare, he just stamped it out under his administration  we have no real idea who the real architects are for obamacare ). For get that what is trying to be showed is what has happened with a Government run healthcare system. Again though that must just be only happening because it is the military and Obama didn't do that.

[little2add]

Obama's reform  doesn't consider the impact his proposals have on innovation.    For example Increasing  spending on diagnostics and therapeutics could encourage such innovation.

Expanding price controls, government health care programs, and health insurance regulation, on the other hand, could hinder America’s ability to innovate.

[superblue]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

Obama's reform  doesn't consider the impact his proposals have on innovation.    For example Increasing  spending on diagnostics and therapeutics could encourage such innovation.

Expanding price controls, government health care programs, and health insurance regulation, on the other hand, could hinder America’s ability to innovate.

 I doubt Obama is as ignorant or naïve as everyone wishes he was, either he knows or someone in his administration has told him what the impacts are of everything he has and is doing. Though it is small beans compared to how China has a bigger grip on the throat of the rest of the world and America.

[dairygirl4u2c]

as always in this debate table, i'm just repeating myself at this point. 

there's nothing to gain by saying we are just trading one broken system for another broken system as if it's all the same in the end. other countries show it can be done cheaper and more effectively with the government in control. 

the main reason it costs less elsewehre is because they tend to regulate and negotiate on medical prices. after that, because insurance comapies are a middle man who serves no purposes but to take profit and create administrative waste that doesn't exist with government single payer. medicare spends three percent on administration, insurance companeis spend thirty percent on profit and adminstration. things like poor nutrition in the USA are small fries, and other factors, in showing expenses.

[Nihil Obstat]

2 hours ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

as always in this debate table, i'm just repeating myself at this point. 

there's nothing to gain by saying we are just trading one broken system for another broken system as if it's all the same in the end. other countries show it can be done cheaper and more effectively with the government in control. 

the main reason it costs less elsewehre is because they tend to regulate and negotiate on medical prices. after that, because insurance comapies are a middle man who serves no purposes but to take profit and create administrative waste that doesn't exist with government single payer. medicare spends three percent on administration, insurance companeis spend thirty percent on profit and adminstration. things like poor nutrition in the USA are small fries, and other factors, in showing expenses.

Not entirely true. There is typically plenty of space for health insurance even under single payer systems, because all systems have some expenses that are paid out of pocket. In Canada for instance it is prescriptions, optometry, dentistry, stuff like that.

[Anomaly]

20 hours ago, Nihil Obstat said:

 

Here is a mistake: Do not get hung up on Obamacare. American healthcare is lame with or without Obamacare. The problems are deeper, and that is a red herring.

Here is another mistake.   Don't get caught up in taking advice from Canadian USA bashers.   

US healthcare is lame because we don't have doctors or medicines or clean hospitals, lol?   Or is it lame because according to WHO, almost 25% of US healthcare workers do nothing but paperwork.  Government programs should fix that.