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Forums - General Discussion - Why the U.S. pays more for health care than the rest of the world

SvennoJ said:

In the US the idea to take care of your own problems is a prevalent one, why should you pay for someone else's conditions.

That is one big problem. Basically everybody pays for everybody, yes.

So in the end you might have best health and only pay for others, or you might have a heart attack and get cancer and need an artificial heart as well as expensive medication and so on and no health insurance will try to withdraw or something like that.

And the best thing is, that sytem is fair because even if it tries to keep you healthy, if you get ill, your kid is an early born or whatever else happens, the health care sytem will pay the bills.



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Conina said:

O M G..... well done sir!  Also love that series :)



Goatseye said:
palou said:

It is involved in all the wrong places.

 

Republicans prevent the national program from developping further into something beneficial, and democrats refuse to give up on a dysfunctional system.

 

Both convinced that more involvment is necessarily going to make things worse/better, respectively.

 

 

Making the government the sole client in healthcare helps regulate a supply/demand curve which is generally moment to moment heavily skewed towards the producer.

 

Instead, the US decided to force everyone to buy their insurance privately, which does the exact contrary.

Obamacare was not really dysfunctional.

It had issues because it was sabotaged by Republicans from 2012 until 2017 and still managed to slash filings for bankrupcy by 50% (which were overwhelmingly by medical bills). http://time.com/money/4765443/obamacare-bankruptcy-decline/

It could've saved US $2.6 trillion if it remained the same as of 2016 and we could've saved more if it was backed by everyone. http://fortune.com/2016/06/21/us-health-care-costs/

Remember that most red states refused to expand Medicaid. A political act no matter what people say.

It does, however, miss the biggest advantages of a governemental healthcare system.



Bet with PeH: 

I win if Arms sells over 700 000 units worldwide by the end of 2017.

Bet with WagnerPaiva:

 

I win if Emmanuel Macron wins the french presidential election May 7th 2017.

Snoopy said:
Zkuq said:

Really? Then the healthcare system here in Finland must be communism, and it's still working a lot better. I think I heard just recently that our healthcare system is the most cost-efficient one in the world. Either that, or it's really close to the top.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Some way it has to be paid for. I agree just like everyone the United States health care system sucks. My stance is with Ron Paul. We have to remove government restrictions as much as possible. For example, why should someone have to go to school for eight years to treat common problems? That is part of the reason why it is so expensive here.

Yes, taxes are perfectly appropriate for things such as healtcare. Someone has to go to school for eight years to treat common problems to be able to properly identify and treat them. You've got to somehow be able to validate that the person treating those common problems is qualified for it, and you pretty much need some kind of a school for that. It's not that important in some fields, but when we're talking about people's health, no risks can be taken. There must be restrictions for the sake of the patients.



Zkuq said:
Snoopy said:

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Some way it has to be paid for. I agree just like everyone the United States health care system sucks. My stance is with Ron Paul. We have to remove government restrictions as much as possible. For example, why should someone have to go to school for eight years to treat common problems? That is part of the reason why it is so expensive here.

Yes, taxes are perfectly appropriate for things such as healtcare. Someone has to go to school for eight years to treat common problems to be able to properly identify and treat them. You've got to somehow be able to validate that the person treating those common problems is qualified for it, and you pretty much need some kind of a school for that. It's not that important in some fields, but when we're talking about people's health, no risks can be taken. There must be restrictions for the sake of the patients.

Yeah, because paying higher taxes completely helped us out. Whose to say they need eight years of schooling to do certain tasks? Why should I need a doctor to fix a broken bone or do basic procedures when you can train someone in that area for a couple years?  It's not like hospitals are going to hire unqualified workers because the hospital can be looking at a lawsuit.



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The main issue with the US is that people don't buy healthcare till they get sick.

Then the government forces companies to insure them.



areason said:
The main issue with the US is that people don't buy healthcare till they get sick.

Then the government forces companies to insure them.

Everybody in every country will do the same thing because we are all greedy selfish people. Thus the reason why Capitalism works well when we let it do its thing.



Snoopy said:
Zkuq said:

Yes, taxes are perfectly appropriate for things such as healtcare. Someone has to go to school for eight years to treat common problems to be able to properly identify and treat them. You've got to somehow be able to validate that the person treating those common problems is qualified for it, and you pretty much need some kind of a school for that. It's not that important in some fields, but when we're talking about people's health, no risks can be taken. There must be restrictions for the sake of the patients.

Yeah, because paying higher taxes completely helped us out. Whose to say they need eight years of schooling to do certain tasks? Why should I need a doctor to fix a broken bone or do basic procedures when you can train someone in that area for a couple years?  It's not like hospitals are going to hire unqualified workers because the hospital can be looking at a lawsuit.

I'm not sure what you're referring to with your remark about higher taxes, but it seems to work pretty well over here. Obviously it's not perfect, but it's working quite well. You don't necessarily need eight years to be able to do certain tasks, but being able to properly assess the situation might take more. Also, it might be worthwhile to train people to be more versatile instead of being suited for certain tasks only. But perhaps you do have a point. I'm just saying there could be real reasons for the amount of education that's required. As to your last point, you seem to have a lot of trust in things sorting themselves out. I don't.



Snoopy said:
areason said:
The main issue with the US is that people don't buy healthcare till they get sick.

Then the government forces companies to insure them.

Everybody in every country will do the same thing because we are all greedy selfish people. Thus the reason why Capitalism works well when we let it do its thing.

More like that's exactly the reason there must be intervention. Because everyone's greedy and selfish (which isn't even completely true, only for the most part), the strongest end up taking advantage of the situation at the cost of the weaker. That's exactly what's happening in every country that has even hints of capitalism, and I don't see how the situation could improve if even the remaining restrictions were removed.



Apparantly Trump likes Australia's Health Care system. Hopefully he realises it's a universal system.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/04/politics/trump-us-australia-health-care

I mean he isn't wrong, our health system is superior and cheaper.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--