TheRealMafoo said:
No. Again, for most people, it's better then anything else in the world. Look, the US government is very good at stepping in and fixing issues where your rights are violated. If this was a civil rights issue, and say some large percentage of healthcare providers would not treat people based on race, or age, or sex, or whatever, then I would be all for the US taking it over. Any hospital will help anyone who can pay for it. So that's not the point. It just needs to be more affordable, and this is where this bill fails, and where the Democrats have a problem with there philosophy. The Democrats like to take things over and run them through the government, and it's imposable to improve or maintain our healthcare quality as a government program. The way they paint this as the lesser of two evils, is to claim the opposition wants to just keep it the way it is. Everyone on the street who is a Democrat has Republican friends, and they all know that everyone wants reform. So that lie is not working. Also, for all the things you can bash about the free market system, affordability is not one of them. Republicans want it more free market then it is and democrats want it government run. If the problem your trying to solve is to make it cheeper, then government run is the last way to go. Here is a solution that would work, for example, and it's the opposite of what Washington is going after at the moment: Make 4 new laws. 1. Your employer is not allowed to provide you insurance. They can put money in an HSA that you can only spend on healthcare expenses if they wish to provide you that benefit, but they can not buy you a policy. 2. Allow healthcare providers to sell insurance across state lines. 3. Remove the restrictions on how much it has to cost. 4. As long as a person is paying there premiums, they can not be dropped for any reason. These simple rules would solve the problem. This would make healthcare much more like car insurance. A system that works extremely well, and people can afford. I have had the same car insurance for 15 years, across 3 states. In that same time (not by my choice), my health insurance has changed 8 times. This would eliminate the issue with preexisting conditions, as you have no reason to change providers. If I had cancer 10 years ago, I would still be on the same policy, across 2 states and three companies. Right now if you change where you work, your screwed if you have a real problem. Remove that connection. Also, the real way to get healthcare costs down, is to build a healthier country. The best way to do that, is to incentivize healthy living. Right now that's against the law. If you removed restrictions on how much health insurance cost, then we could really move towards a healthier US. And before you go into it then costing way to much for old people, or what have you, I could today open up a store and sell shirts for $10,000 each. There is no restriction on what I can sell a shirt for. Still, you can buy one for 6 bucks in walmart. This would go a LONG way to solving the problem, but none of this is in the 2,500 page bill. None of it. |
You see, I think healthcare in the USA is not all it's cracked up to be, in both quality and costs.
You first claim it is better for most people than anywhere else in the world, I'll grant that yes, it probably features in the top 20 or so healthcare systems. But it does have major failings. This paper from Nolte and McKee found that the USA had the highest mortality rate from preventable diseases than any other first world country at 101 deaths per 1,000,000 population, that's a total of between 75,000 to101,000 preventable deaths a year in the USA. these are pretty damning figures, it paints a picture that the USA has one of the lowest quality healthcare systems in the first world as it's cure rate for preventable diseases is so low.
You then talk about something that had me a little confused. I didn't mention rights. I was talking about healthcare quality for most people, not infringement on civil rights. I did not mention that certain races or ages are discriminated against. You carry on to say hospitals don't discriminate and will help anyone who pays, I know that, I'm not arguing that people value money over prejudice at all, of course they do.
You then get on to the point about the need for medicine to be more affordable, I couldn't agree more Mafoo. This study shows that healthcare is the most expensive in the USA per capita by quite some way at $5,711, the next being Iceland at $3,159. I know that the next argument will be about government spending more on healthcare as percentage GDP than any other country, I accept that. However, according to The American Journal of Medicine insurance and other medical spending outweighs government expenditure. It even goes on to say 62% of bankruptcies were caused by medical costs when a serious injury or illness occurs (up from just 8% in 1981), most middle class Americans are one serious illness away from bankruptcy because they have limited access to healthcare.
Your reform suggestions will help sort out many problems to quite some extent though, as you said.
But I'm afraid that I see healthcare as inherently problematic in the USA. It is behind many first world systems and to compete it needs to adapt.
