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No, you don't need to go there. Having free treatment is not as good as it seems, there is no incentive to encourage people to look after themselves. Many people will let themselves get ill, because they expect free treatment, and think that treatment is the answer to all their ills.
Plus, you will get a whole load of health tourists. Do you want to give them access to your wallet, that's what you would be doing, through taxes.
Are you in the US? I ask because we don't have free health care but we do have an obesity epidemic from kids to adults, people who get no exercise anymore, people who smoke, etc... Americans generally do not take care of themselves at all. They just don't think about it until they have a heart attack. They don't need the idea of free health care to encourage them to be in bad health - they do it already.
How can we ensure that everybody gets the care they need without becoming a communist country?
It's about the standards of care we're willing to pay for (or not).
To the degree that we're willing to establish minimum standards for all to enjoy...
we're not willing to have (pay for) the upper levels of care available for all to receive.
Most of the debate is about how to say that^ using 10,000 far more flowery words.
How about this:
UNIVERSAL health care means everyone can care for anyone to the best of their ability - and you exercise free choice.
[] Decriminalize giving health care;
[] Decriminalize the trade and possession of medicine and equipment;
[] Expand opportunities for medical education;
[] Offer credentials (not licenses) by supervised examination, regardless of where or how one learned medicine - including apprenticeships;
[] The only government function is to be a credential bank available to the public; and
[] Eliminate tort abuse with "Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back!" - and nothing more.
Are you in the US? I ask because we don't have free health care but we do have an obesity epidemic from kids to adults, people who get no exercise anymore, people who smoke, etc... Americans generally do not take care of themselves at all. They just don't think about it until they have a heart attack. They don't need the idea of free health care to encourage them to be in bad health - they do it already.
That would solve a lot of problems... but it just hides the real issue:
the ratio of people capable of contributing as well as receiving is faulty.
The upper levels of medical care are the only thing that most need insurance for.
At the middle levels of income as a means of protecting other assets and future income.
At the upper levels of income insurance is more about protecting cash.
If more (at the lower income end) were capable of paying out of pocket for X good/service
then the system as a whole would be set up around meeting that need without insurance.
The rest of the story is that Nixon was sold the (health care) program by being told it would be a "for profit" system. In other words, insurance companies, drug companies and other corporate operations could make a lot of money on it----and that is exactly what has happened. Health care has deteriorated in the U.S. compared to other nations, while profit of companies engaged in health care has run amuk!!!
Prior to that time there were many more non-profit hospitals---many of which have been "bought" out by the for profit hospital operations like HCA. The profits would actually send "sales" people to the executives and board of directors of non-profits to explain to them how much better it would be for the people the hospital served. And to make it easier for non-profit directors and executives to leave their positions, they were given generous "severance" packages by the hospital corporation that bought out the non-profit.
Pay for CEO's of non-profits is now dramatically rising, but it still doesn't even light a candle to pay and stock options given to CEO's of for profit hospitals.
Drug companies sell products in the U.S. at grossly inflated prices, while still making profit selling the same drugs in the same packaging and the same doses for less to Canada and other countries. That's why personally buying prescription drugs from Canadian distributors is as much as one-third less than the cost in the U.S.. It's the exact same drug, by the same manufacturer.
Profit in almost everything makes things better. In healthcare, it is a demotivator. For profit operations want to make money for shareholders and executives first---and if they can provide service to people on the way to doing that, all the better.
Every other modern country in the world is providing universal health care because all of them have had the gonads to do what WE have to do----make a sensible decision on how to RATION health care. We just do not have the resources to be all things to all people all of the time.
My favorite example is the heart transplant received by Dick Cheney at 70+ years old. Every year there is a need for 100,000 donor hearts, but we only receive 2000-2200. The selection process is completely based on who has the money to pay for it, not necessarily on how it would overall benefit society. Dick Cheney's passing would have had no FINANCIAL impact on his family. But what about a 35 year old man, sole bread winner with a family of four? If he needs a heart, doesn't get it and dies, then his family goes on social security survivor benefits, medicaid, maybe food stamps----all of which put a drain on our national resources.
Maybe we should limit heart transplants to people under 60 years of age (I'm 66). Maybe we should find ways to make people comfortable in their final days rather than spending much of our health resources trying to keep 80 year old people alive for a few more weeks.
I'm not calling for "death" squads. I'm suggesting that a well-thought out PLAN, would at least put all of us on some kind of equal footing. The rich will ALWAYS find the care they want--fly to India or someplace--pay somebody $100k for a kidney--that will never stop. But maybe as a society we should start considering the better good of our society as a WHOLE, rather than just what people can afford with health care. Or keep on with what we have, because it is certainly headed toward collapse in that not too distant future.
additional:
Instead of requiring doctors and hospitals to buy professional liability insurance that can literally run as high as $250,000 per year, why not go to a "workers compensation" type of system. Doctors pay into that system and if someone is injured by a medical mistake they receive correction of the problem and/or compensatory damages---all of which are spelled out, like most states' workers compensation system. There would be no "punitive damages" awarded which are often three times the compensatory damages.
Benefits are--it would encourage doctors and hospitals to report medical mistakes rather than cover them up as they are prone to do now (because their malpractice premiums skyrocket). More reports of medical mistakes would give us better statistics to determine where more education was needed by doctors or changes in work environment needed in hospitals. And if all the "premiums" were paid into a single national non-profit entity there would be a singularity in coverage, claim forms, endorsements, etc. The administration of a single "medical mistake" insuror would be much less expensive than the couple of dozen companies engaged in it now who are trying to cover potential losses AND make money after they have done so.
I spent thirty years in the insurance field as an underwriter, ratemaker, and compliance officer. I retired and spent six years working in medical records of a major metropolitan hospital.
In the property casualty field, the goal of many companies is to save ten to twenty dollars on every claim that comes in the door. That is millions of dollars for large insurors. In the health field, it is no different. Pay less than average for every patient that comes into the hospital or doctor's office. Profit hospitals want as few nurses as possible to handle as big a patient load as possible. Nurses work under much stress and sometimes forget about hand washing (which results in upwards of 40% of infections that occur to patients AFTER they enter the hospital). Profit does not equal good patient care. It does equal shareholder satisfaction and gigantic bonuses to health insurance company executives. Google it to see the terrific pay some receive for delivering the least amount of healthcare to the public.
Much to think about and there will be a lot of naysayers. But sticking with what we got is sticking us where it hurts.
Do you think it's fair for your dry cleaner, hairdresser, tax preparer, or electrician who has to buy on the open market, is WILLING to do so, and can't get underwritten because he or she has a preexisting condition with which they could easily exist until Medicare kicked in? Just because you work for a place that is a school district, a government, a large medical center, a blue chip company, or a medium-sized professional office with 50+ people and you've got yours? Do you think it's fair? (I'm not asking you to do a cost-benefit. I'm just asking you if it's fair. When I walk into the Middle Eastern dry cleaner or the Vietnamese hair cutters, I wonder how they buy their medical insurance).
Note: they typically deny people for medical histories that are short of spotless.
My answer is that the time has come. I wanted this way back when there was the Hillary Care push, but I knew that, not being in office, she couldn't pull it off. And, in the process of this fight, I am still nonpartisan, but more aligned with the Democrats than ever before.
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 12-15-2012 at 01:26 AM..
Haha, Oleg. I know only two Torontonians. Both Italian. One is a Waterloo schooled accountant son of immigrants - God only knows what they did. The other is a UT trained attorney, son of a Mississauga dentist. Money begets money, in the case of the latter. The former is more slick, but still has a working class veneer.
Should America give in to a National Healthcare system like Germany, Sweden, Thailand, England, or Japan?
Do you think it's time to take profit out of our healthcare system?
We are unique in the profit we allow others to make off people through our healthcare needs. Do you think it will last for the long haul? We go broke from medical bills unlike other people in other countries.
Other countries rely on making their profits from the U.S. in regards to prescription drugs because their countries have limits set on price but we do not. Do you think that's fair for Americans to pick up the slack financially?
Do you feel paying more makes us better or stupid? People in other countries fair as well with health without going into medical bankruptcy, do you think we should still put a price on our health? Or should we adopt the same as others and have limits to how much the medical companies can make off our medical needs?
I realize this is a political leaning discussion but I'd like to know what you think individually, without left or right leaning input. What do you truly think as an individual paying for your healthcare. Do you think what we have now, a for profit system, is working for the people of this country? Or do you think we need to limit the profit that can be made off our health? Do you like the fact that other countries come sell higher here for the same medicine to make their money? Is that ok with you? We are after all a free market.
And lastly, do you feel it sets up a strange dynamic within our country? Do you think having healthcare depend on your ability to make enough money to survive medical incident without going broke make us more distant and group in odd ways socially in our country? From medicare to welfare, do you think it sets us apart in how we communicate equally because money buys our health? Do you think fear is logical in regards to not receiving care or do you like that the poor have a label of welfare recipient? Do you like the divide?
Just wondering how everyone is feeling about this currently now that a few things have changed in regards to our healthcare. Do you think Obamacare will fix things or not? Do you think he did to much or to little?
Thanks On a personal note I am unsure in a direction at this point. I would like a change but I am unsure at what kind of change. I would like a non profit, it seems odd to me to profit from healthcare as a country, especially when other countries take advantage of our for profit medical system.
I for one do not want politicians or federal employees to decide what care i can or cannot get. do you really want some bureaucrat to tell you what your surgery mother or your wifes mom can or cannot have?
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Previously posted on the Nixon Health Care Plan
On a personal note I am unsure in a direction at this point. I would like a change but I am unsure at what kind of change. I would like a non profit, it seems odd to me to profit from healthcare as a country, especially when other countries take advantage of our for profit medical system.
