| HappySqurriel said: A few problems associated with the US' current implemetation of healthcare ... Healthcare "Insurance" isn't really insurance at all and is (basically) an open ended pre-paid healthcare plan. In many ways this would be like home insurance paying for people to re-decorate or re-model their house rather than protecting you from risks like fire and theft. The system discourages the competition that makes other markets so inexpensive and high quality. You rarely choose your healthcare insurance provider (it is typically choosen by your company), you don't choose the coverage you get, you don't choose where you get your treatment, and you don't choose the treatment you get.
If healthcare insurance worked like insurance, these companies offered seperate healthcare benefit plans, your company put money towards buying healthcare services (rather than buying them for you), you made decisions on what healthcare insurance and benefits you wanted (and possibly paid out of pocket if it cost more than your benefit package was worth), and your healthcare paid out a certain value for you to get access to doctors of for treatments you could choose who treated you and what treatment you received (possibly paying more out of pocket if you wanted better treatment), the entire system would become better for (almost) everyone involved. |
I completely agree. The healthcare system does not operate like a free market, and encourages people to make economically unwise decisions. People's choices are severely limited as well. Not to mention insurance companies are about as bureaucratic as they come. They spend a ridiculous amount of money on overhead (even more than many government agencies). They are essentially a middle man who ends up artificially inflating costs while essentially transferring money from Party A to Party B without ever really contributing anything.
@ Mafoo - Yes, it is completely fair to blame the government for something that happened on a temporary basis over 60 years ago for a modern day phenomenon. That's completely logical. Don't blame all the people who beat the anti-government war drum every time the government tried to fix the system from being so backwards. And don't blame the people who manipulate the tax code.
It sounds like you are encouraging the government to take away the tax break on healthcare (i.e. regulate this practice) while just the other day you threw a hissy fit about the government regulating the banking industry. You really don't come off as credible when you blame the government for every single thing that happens. You would probably blame the government if one of your pets ran away.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
