The biggest problem in the US is that people want to make money out of caring. I understand the doctors and drug makers to cover costs and such, but some drugs are ridiculously expensive, or equipment, or whatever. Then you have the insurance companies trying to milk you for as much as possible. If you have some problem, and you aren't getting healthcare from work then you will be stuck paying ridiculous amounts of money, which most people won't be able to afford.

If you have people trying to get more money out of patients, then the system is broken and ineffective and outright retarded. And does not capitalism basically say that you must make as much money as possible out of whatever you do? Adding 2 and 2, you get that a healthcare based on capitalism just does not fucking work.

Actually, our system isn't very capitalistic because there is no competition.  Despite mutiple insurance carriers, multiple hospital operators, multiple drug manufacturers....it's still limited in the way it's provided because costs are inflated artificially high. 

It's basically nullified the free market ability of the health care sector.    If it WERE free market capitalism then costs would be down dramatically.

The way I see it, the first step is at the drug and equipment manufacturers. They start seeling their drugs for ridiculous amounts over wht it costs to produce them, even with enough profit to cover development. Then you have thehospitals and doctor sector which throws on top even more crap, even though they could probably do things more cheaply and still operate at some benefit, ESPECIALLY if the suppliers lowered their costs. They still need to make money and even if they wanted to there is a floor because of the suppliers. They however, still aim to make money so they do inflate the cost more.

Then on top of that you have the insurance companies and the same happens with them.

From what I understand there isn't that much competition on the drug/equipment level, and if there is then they are not too bothered to lower costs given how it's already nice and high. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that they are businesses, and the goal of a business is to make more money when it should be healthcare first, then profit.

No doubt but but this is why it just needs reforming.   Federal policy has also caused a lot of the high prices and limited to no competition options.

Going to a universal healtcare won't change the actual costs.  They'll just be passed on to all tax payers directly.   The better idea is to get it back to free market capitalism and the whole pricing structure will fall back into acceptable levels.

Universal healthcare would likely increase the actual costs:

If you're a parts supplier/phamaceutical rep/whatever, and you're billing the government?  You're gonna charge as much as you can, because you know that the government has an endless resource pool and negligible accountability (it already deficit spends, and can hardly account for everything).

Hell the U.S. government misplaces billions of dollars annually.  :)

The problem is with the business part. Because the moment companies see you depend on them too much they will instantly try to milk you as much as possible. What will happen under the capitalistic model owuld be something along this way:

Company A invents cure for AIDS first. There are no other cures known, the company patents the cure. The demand is high and there are no other copmetitors so they start charging a ridiculous amount, oen which only the top 5% and less can afford to pay. Any following company will probably get sued, due to the patent filed earlier. How many ways do you think people can take care of AIDS?

See what happens? It's kind of how Time Warner tried goign the way of content based billing instead of speed based. Thankfully they got pressured from the government and people threatened to switch and they changed that. What happens if there were no other companies to switch to and the government did as what you said and just chilled in the back?

If it's a private business, it won't work. Unless like the red corss or some non-profit organization comes up with the cure.

Yes, more or less. To do a 3-year Bachelor of science degree in this country costs around 30,000. I can't afford that, to pay for my degree I would have to work for three or four years before hand. However, the taxpayer picks up around 27,000 of this and I pay about 3,000.

I could be successful without them, but it would be a much steeper hill for me to do much slower climb.

That's a rather dubious proposition though.  You can't base a health care system on something like that.

Just saw this. I view the taxes the same way he does, and eventhuogh I'm getting taxed now a ridiculous amount, I'm only pissed about the state tax (I'm paying out of state for fuckign college why the FUCK are they taking my money?). I also don't see the difference between buying meat and killing an animal. In fact I'd rather kill the animal beacuse then I know the animal would be perfect. Best meal I had was rabbit stew with the rabbit killed in our backyard that morning.

Also I can guarantee you my parents busted their ass far more than you did ( i know abot your 20 dollars for 3 weeks story too) to get to upper-middle, lower-high class. They are all thoroughly up for giving taxes for what matters (health, security, infrastructure).

So I guess your limited view of the world just got expanded ,eh?

Well what I'm saying is to let the government pay the researchers and doctors to discover the cure. Maybe slightly inefficient (maybe if people in government were assigned by merit not favor done to the guy above) but it would still be better off for everyone than if a business did it. I'd rather pay the government than some person in a business, at least I control who I'm paying for a week every 4 years, not so with a business.

At least the politicians have a little more incentive than jsut money, they need to get re-elected, so they serve the people at least to a larger amount of a degree than a pure businessman.