Universal health works just fine here in Australia. I was talking to someone and he had to pay over $9000 per year for health cover in the US and then also pay for every time they visited a doctor. That is just insane.

So the provision that you have to buy in to a govt plan or one of the subsidies or face a fine of up to $150,000 or jail doesn't bother anyone? It does me. That just smacks of fascism. Btw, it has not passed the Senate and it will not pass there.

1.05 Trillion over 10 years.

You know... the republicans actually have their own Healthcare reform plans.  But yeah, once again thanks for not doing any research and just blindly paroting a position someone has told you.

The main difference is that republicans want to put down a lot of the stuff to state level.

Pretty much everyone wants healthcare to be done.  It's just there are different ideas of doing it.

Alternative Republican plans I've read about all seem a bit, well, patronising as opposed to anything else.

What exactly is wrong with the UKs NHS? As a UK citizen I would say it is a good service. I'm sure Canadians say the same thing about theirs. Just because the media tend to cover a few isolated "Horror cases" and negative cherry picked statistics doesn't mean it is the true representation. They do it to sell newspapers and receive higher ratings, controversy sells.

...

I can agree about medicare and medicaid being a good example of government inefficiency. But that system is so inefficient because it covering a selected small amount of people across a large country. Of course it's going to be inefficient based on that reasoning alone. Allowing a universal plan as opposed to a selective plan will hopefully allow the government to run healthcare in a more efficient manner. Will it be perfect? No, especially with a country like the USA. But it is sure going to be more efficient than medicaid and medicare, I can assure that.

I don't know... the main differences seem to be....

Democrats

Extend coverage to 36 million

Reduce Premiums to the consumer.  (While rising healthcare spending at a cost of GDP at higher rates then it's rising now..)

Cost 1 Trillion.

Republicans

Extend coverage to only like 3 million.

Reduce Premiums

Cost 64 billion.

The Republican bill doesn't really extend coverage... but it seems to do a lot more with what it's spending... and has a much better chance of actually lowering GDP healthcare expenditures... which seems to be the biggest complaing people always have in these arguements. 

80% of people are already happy with their coverage... including a lot of people that are uninsured.  Only 67% are happy with the costs.

Attacking costs, and making provisions for the few not happy with their care is the right way to do it.

Not revising everything to where it's a totally different system 80% of the people may or may not be happy about and will cost us more in the short and longrun as a country.

The republican plan with some democratic ammendments would be much more sensible.

sorry coudnt agree less...america is the only "wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage" (i.e. some kind of insurance).America still psends the most amount of money per person on health

And we're passing a bill that will probably raise that amount... so... I don't see how it's going to help that.

http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/press-release/economist-says-healthcare-reform-bill-will-raise-spending-20-percent-gdp-%E2%80%98much-2017%E2%80%99

Which is the issue.  Government run healthcare will actually cost us even mroe when it comes to healthcare spending as apart of GDP.  America spends more then europe despite not having a universal system because America is a lot different then europe in many ways.

yeah but surely this money is actually going to help far more people? so the spendingper person will go down? or i am just making a hole for myself