Obama Health care plan.

[mrstickball]

mirgro said:

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:
The US needs healthcare reform desperately. The amount you pay as a % of GDP is absurd.

Heres a website with some neat little charts to show you what I mean

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/universal.htm

USA pays 16% of GDP, next highest in the OECD is France with 11%

Nobody is argueing that.  Hell, people that believe that should actually be AGAINST this bill... since all estimates of this bill suggests that this will raise the cost of healthcare paid per GDP... even the white house estimates.  Though... does money spent as a % of GDP really matter that much as a statistic I wonder.  I mean, healthcare is a local phenomena afterall.  It's buisness that can't be outsourced.  It's money going to other americans who will be using that money to buy stuff and pay off loans.  The % of GDP isn't so much the problem as % out of the average persons wallet.  For what it's worth it's actually now 17.3% though... what due to the recession yet people still needing healthcare.

You bring up a very good point that all the costs of healthcare stay within the system. However this will only increase an already large gap between the rich and the poor. As someone said, can't remember who, "rich people are rich because they know how to keep their money and not spend it." I have never bought into the "give rich people more money so it trickles down" because if even a single person decided to spend $10 mil on a private jet, that'd be enough for 10 people's salary for 10 years, and that's if those people are in the very above average pay grade of $100k-ish a year.

I don't think the 2 points are really related. The issue of costs are spread out between a wide number of people. If you can drive down the costs of healthcare, those that need it (the most likely poor) will have more money in which to spend it.

Likewise, if you fix some points in the system - like the insane amount of time it takes to become a doctor - there will be more doctors, and they will have to compete with eachother, driving down their earnings a year. That way, you would close the rich-poor gap on both sides - give the poor more money, while giving the rich less.