Would national healthcare be more palatable if it integrated either of these ideas? (excuse the thread typo)

It occurs to me that conservatives have two main problems with national healthcare. The first is that a social system does not introduce an element of competition that the private sector has, which results in an inefficient service. The second is that the healthcare you receive is equal to all other classes so those on the upper end of the progressive tax system feel as though they get a bad deal.

So I have come up with two ideas that could make national healthcare more palatable, a middle ground if you will. These are just broad outlines so if you want to add something that would make it better feel free.

A: Introduce two or more national healthcare systems.

Introducing two or more healthcare systems would add an element of competition so each system will want to become more efficient. What you would do is set up several small scale healthcare systems that equal the capacity of one national healthcare system. Then you give funding and bonuses to each healthcare system based on it's performances and so they strive to become more efficient than the other national healthcare systems.

The benefit of this is that everyone will have access to a minimum level of healthcare as in a social system, but also the system would have some of the benefits that private healthcare has, allowing it to be a cheaper system to run overall.

B: Have staged healthcare systems based on what you contribute.

This would work by analysing your tax bracket. Those that don't contribute get access to a basic system, those that contribute more will recieve better healthcare.

For example if two people go to hospital, one who contributes 0% of their income and one that contributes 50% of their income. The person that contributes 50% will get priority over the person that contributes nothing, he would get the better doctors and not have to wait for treatment.

The benefit of this is that both will receive healthcare, but because the one contributes more they will get better healthcare, perhaps to the levels of private healthcare.

What do you think? Obviously these are just ideas. So feel free to suggest how they could work better or if they wouldn't work at all.

I am not a conservative, but I do think like them with respect to healthcare, so I think I will respond.

First off, neither of your points are the problem I have with healthcare. I don’t care about competition for the sake of competition, and in a perfect world, everyone would get the best heath care possible.

The goal everyone wants. Is US’s best healthcare (the best in the world) available to all. This is impossible. One of those two has to give. We can either sacrifice the quality of care, or sacrifice the ease in which it’s obtained.

Conservatives say I want the best healthcare, just give me the opportunity to earn it.

Liberals say I want the best healthcare that can be provided to all. It won’t be as good as the best, but if everyone gets it, it’s worth the sacrifice.

There is no way to make these two groups of people happy. So, the debate about socialization continues.

I've always thought of you as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. But one that doesn't label themselves as such.

That's a fair statement, there is no way to keep both groups happy of course and of course you know I'm a firm believer that a national helathcare system is worth the sacrifice. The NHS isn't bad at all, the level of care for all is fairly decent so the sacrifice is worth it in our case, plus you can also go private in the UK if you wish.

But to discuss your point about the conservatives wanting the best and just needing the opportunity to earn it. Do you not think that my second idea would go someway to counteract that problem? I mean obviously it wouldn't be perfect for many reasons, but you would be recieving the best service available without going private based on what you earn, which in some way would be rewarding to the same end.

As long as a government has a low tax rate in a fair tax system while maintaining a balanced budget without any unfunded liabilities and people are not forced to use public services I don't care what social programs the government introduces ... The problem is that the vast majority of governments do not have a low tax rate, have a tax system which punishes success, run massive deficits with huge unfunded liabilities, and quite often force people to use a public system.

I don't like the idea of two people being sick, and the one you treat is the one who paid more. In the US, they all get treatment right away. All health insurance protects is your financial stability, not your health.

They system your talking about limits the care a sick person would get, based on economic status. I like the imperfect system we have now.

If I was poor, I would rather live, and be in financial ruin, then dead with no debt.

If I was in a position to fix healthcare, I would make a lot of changes to our system, but I would not make it a government plan. What we have today is broken. What Congress is suggesting, is all the same broken parts, with more of it broken. That does not seem like the right direction to me.

In Australia we have a hybrid system that gives people the option of having private health care if they wish, but the public option is also available. Is that what would happen in the US if it implemented universal health care? Would both systems co-exist or is it an all nothing affair?

Because I think a hybrid private/public system works pretty well here.

I don't see the problem with a hybrid system - public healthcare but also a private sector that sells higher quality care at a price.

Of course a person who uses private healthcare ends up paying for both, but there has to be a sacrifice somewhere.

There was. The creation of this country. For me, the sacrifice, was the men and woman who fought for the rights we all have.

Those rights, afford us all the ability to advance in this country, and provide for yourself, and your family. Before the united states, the world was a class based world. The poor never had the ability to be more then poor. The rich were rich due to there "birthright", and if you were not born of privilege, you have no avenue to obtain success.

Today, thanks to sacrifice, every American is born with that ability. It now is on each and every one of them to take advantage of it, and provide for themselves.

Health insurance is not something people are entitled to. It's something that must be earned.

In fact, every American covered by healthcare has always had to be earned. We are just arguing over who's responsible for earning it. I say the individual is.

@Mafoo. Oh come on, you're totally taking what I said out of context.

I clearly meant that its impossible to have a perfectly balanced healthcare system that provides for everybody. Don't try and twist it into the sacrifice of the people who created the country - that has absolutely nothing to do with the healthcare system.

Also classlessness, which you seem to be a huge fan of, is a major component of communism. A capitalist world naturally has classes, a gap between the rich and the poor that continues generation to generation.

I thought the context of your post was someone needs to pay for the poor to have healthcare, and it's a sacrifice the rich need to make. I don't think it is. I think the sacrifice the poor needed made for them, was made. The rest is up to the people who are poor.

And classes today are only classes because we call them that. They are not remotely the same as a class based system 250 years ago. Back then, if you were born poor, you were going to die poor, and there was nothing you could do about it.

In the US, millions of poor people are bettering there lives every day. In a capitalist world, you have rich and poor, but any individual can become either.