On Universal Health Care

Welcome to the light.

I was offered a job at a small company last year, including some ownership. The deal breaker was zero health insurance. They were paying a competitive salary, but when I factored in the health insurance cost, it didn't make financial sense to move.

As a matter of fact, I would have been punished by the government. See, I was trying to move the salary up to compensate for the health costs, but guess what? I couldn't fully deduct the money I would spend on health insurance, when today that's a tax free benefit!!!

I think Bush was proposing a fix for that particular situation, but it's really not solving the main issue. Frank is right, we can't be competitive like this, and the system discourages entrepreneurship.

I'm glad that money is starting to motivate you. Of course, doing it because it's the right fucking thing to do has been motivating a lot of us for a while now.

Also, if corporations get out of the health care provider business, then that frees up a whole bunch of capital for investment in more appropriate industries.

To me, it doesn't matter what the motivation is. Mine is the death of a very close person due to this mess of a system we have, but if people suddenly support the idea because it saves them a few bucks, I could care less. To me the important thing is the result, not the motivations of anybody.

I agree with that, believe me. I'll take it any way we can get it. It's just a bit disheartening when people dying doesn't raise an eyebrow, but tell them the economy can improve and suddenly it all makes perfect sense!

Not really. The money you think they'd save would have to go to the government for the new medical coverage. That has to be paid for somehow.

Something tells me that premiums would go down, if the government got into the bizness.

The sad thing is that with big business running the show we'll never see universal health care like those in Canada have, it's all about how much money the insurance companies can pull in, it's never about the people it's about the money and treating the symptoms and never the illness, for if you cure the person you can't get any more money out of them. Pretty much the reason why the Fair Tax will never get passed.

Have things ever been made less expensive via government involvement? I think the trend is just the opposite. The bureaucracy involved just eats money.

I wish it would be otherwise, but I think the National Health Coverage would be like the Veteran's system loathed by one and all.

<Corrected for grammar error>

Is this really true?

I don't know from personal experience if the Veteran system is horrible, but it is more advanced than the private system in some areas.

They've had computerized medical records for quite some time, and the software was developed by them and released to the public. Look at the wiki page for all the awards granted to the VA due to this. When people talk about government funded projects, they would never acknowledge something like this.

I dare say that for every notable success of the VA system, the pundits here can point out a dozen glaring shortcomings.

I would love to see a functional system run by the government, but we all can remember the Rube Goldberg system that was tried out by Madame Clinton in the early nineties. It can't fly now, and it won't even if she were to miraculously become the next president.

"The Best Care Anywhere"
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...1.longman.html

Vivisector, I'm afraid you are going to have to backup your VA comments with some facts.

I don't know of anybody who is trying to resuscitate Hillary-care. Even Clinton.

And allowing the public and private providers to fully compete with each other would probably be a net positive for the quality and cost of care.

Yeah, so is saving lives, but you weren't much interested in that until the monetary solution came around. So sell your sudden jump into altruism somewhere else.

Yes, you are. They don't believe in altruism, either, and are just as motivated by the $$$.

Who cares as long as good universal health care gets passed?

Cobretti, a Democrat? I've no problems seeing that. Not like it makes him a liberal by default.

Now, on the other hand, if he started protesting the war...

I actually think that the money saving aspect and competitiveness of going to a system like this should be emphasized more. If what people understand is the economic talk, then let's highlight that. Whatever gets us to a more sane system.

I'm still waiting to hear what's so bad about the VA though ...

"Money is more important than living because money makes living even better!"

Better quality of life for everyone, except for the dead people and their families. But hey, what do you care? Now you can get that sunroof for your Volvo that you've been eyeing!

All of this is great to hear, Cap. I suppose the recent flogging of the current administration was over current soldiers rather than vets.

I stand corrected on that point. That being said, then the problem lies with the military hospitals, which by extention are from the government as well.

Anyone going to defend their care after the recent troubling reports about current soldiers and health care?

Bueller? Bueller?

Oh, please. As if you give a fuck about the greatest number of people.

I love the idea that one who gives a shit about lives other than their own are just overly dramatic. Take another page from the playbook, Frank.

I'm sure Frank wouldn't like a full on Univerisal Health Care system. Mostly as they are too expensive for even the countries that now have them.

But a system where everyone can go to the doctor when they need too, can see the dentist every once and while, see the eye doctor once every couple of years. Have major surgery without bankrupting your family. Not even the most diehard conservative should say no to that.

I know it actually hasn't gone out at all (it's the basis of conservatism, therefore is always entwined with it), but why would you choose the year of Watergate for your joke?

Vivisector;

Your original example was the poor quality of health care at the VA, that was destroyed.

Now you are moving on to general military hospitals, aside from the well known disaster at Walter Reed, why don't you provide some more backup as to why their system is horrible.

It doesn't really matter, your point was that the government can't manage this type of stuff better than private enterprise, that's false as you can see from the article on the VA. Let's say the military hospitals are a mess (and we don't really know this), does that invalidate that we have a model that works (the VA example?).

This is all just an excuse to say "the government can't do this or that". Hey, I'm not a socialist, but that's just not a valid argument in this case.

I'm citing the media for saying that if Walter Reed is the typical care our soldiers receive, then we're looking at that for future outcomes with the idea of federally controlled health care.

I've spent the last twelve years working in the administration of a major public sector hospital. I know we're better than the two other hospital systems in the area. But I also know that competition between these three entities is one of the driving factors for keeping the quality of such care as high as possible.

Make the government take away that driving force, and I guarantee the quality will slip very quickly into mediocrity.

Not even the media has said this is the "typical" care our soldiers receive.

I believe in competition, but that doesn't explain why the VA hospitals are on average probably better than the hospital you work at, and more technologically advanced in the IT sense.

It even happens to the best of us (by 'best of us' read: socialists).

First, I agree that the idea is a great thing. Being able to take my health care with me from job to job would be a major boon.

The crucial thing IMO is cost control. Allow the competition to continue for the health care dollar, and I promise that the health care entities out there will stay honest. In a world of one payer insurance, it would be mandatory. If they were to not play nice it would mean certain death of your hospital.

You'd have to have a bureaucracy to deal with the insurance issues, that's a given. But it would be crucial to keep that down to a minimum to keep the money in the system going to pay for the health care rather than overhead.

There are more factors to consider, and you'd basically have to have companies sign over the cash they're 'saving' by not having health care costs calcalated into their bottom lines.

The next thing you'd have to address is paying for the people not covered in your new system. Who's covered? Citizens of the US only? Taxpayers? Or anyone off the street?

No matter how well intended your system, it must be paid for by the taxpayer. Can that system handle people that aren't adding to the budget for that system? If not, it will quickly break down and the noble experiement will be a failure.

The hospital in question is near the top of the US News and World Report's Best Hospitals in America list. I'd be curious to hear if any VA hospitals are on that list. I hope they are, for our vets deserve nothing less.

I admit our hospital is at the upper end of the curve. Our administration has long recognized that medical research of today leads to the treatments of tomorrow. They've spent the last several years doing a few things, like getting the best researchers here by building them a brand new tower to house their work.

Not every mom and pop hospital can afford to do that, but you must have at least one of these in a region to take care of those that are the most ill and injured.

Less than ten years ago we were in serious financial trouble thanks to smaller payments for medicare and other medical programs. So how did we pull ourselves out of trouble? Making sure we did the best to keep patients coming our way instead of towards the competition.

If the goverment being involved means that competition is now absent, we would be up the creek without a scalpel. The research being done now would not be happening, and we'd likely have been sold to a competitor and closed outright.

So, yeah, the money's important. It keeps the place open.

EDIT: nevermind.

The fact that the US poverty rate has increased while GDP has also increased would indicate otherwise. Your model up there makes flawed predictions.

Done and done!

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepu...XIE2003001.pdf

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm

I'll take a CDC/StatsCan survey over Vivisector's guarantees and anecdotes.

Frank, you are so sensible, and so right.

It always puzzled me how otherwise sane people would oppose universal health care. So many things can and sometimes do go wrong in a person's life that knowing that when push comes to shove someone has your back is a very reassuring thought.

Personal experience time. My father has severe rheumatoid arthritis since his twenties. And I'm talking 60% loss of mobility, major orthopedic operations and heavy medication every day for decades. To top it off he had a major stroke 5 years ago leading to 80% loss of mobility and speech problems. He stays in intensive care for quite a while and has to undergo about a year and a half of physiotherapy and speech therapy. If this happened to an accountant married to a nurse, with three children in ,say, the US would he have managed to stay out of a poor shelter much less send his children to university? And keep in mind that accountants and nurses get paid shit in Greece.

There is so much misinformation about health care it makes my head spin. But I agree with FC (as I generally do): economically, it just makes sense. Even Wal-Mart is getting religion on UHC.

When has government run something more effeciently than the private sector?

Please read the VA article linked early in this thread.

I got this off the WashingtonMonthly site...

Makes you think, eh?

Canada's and the US's health care systems rate about equally in terms of customer satisfaction when comparing Canadians and insured Americans. We're much happier than uninsured Americans, of course. Our health care costs run about 1/3 of yours, per capita. Having one mainstream medical insurer per province (Blue Cross and other group insurance plans are available, but they cover what the province does not, they don't provide a redundant service) streamlines things drastically. How can it not?

You could point to the fiasco concerning military contracts and subcontracts as well, if you like. An awful lot of money given to Halliburton and KBR seems to go up in smoke, no?

Honestly, there are lots of instances (not necessarily in the realm of health care) where the public sector outperforms the private sector. You don't have to look very far.