Koch-Funded Study shows USA would save $2 Trillion/Decade on medicare for all
61 replies, posted
Wow, rude.
At least you can get rid of a pebble in your shoe.
But then the pharma companies would stop paying the politicians bribes to keep it as-is
I don't think a realistic proposal for universal health coverage has been proposed for the US to even evaluate. The most popular so far seems to be Bernie's idea of "Medicare for all," but why would any trust our government to run Medicare well for everyone when the current level of Medicare is already being run into the ground? The idea seems like a total non-starter. The fact that Sanders hasn't even proposed a complete policy that pays for it effectively is a knock as well.
Do you know of a fairly complete and detailed proposal that I can take a look at?
No, no one has a "Fairly detailed and complete proposal" for you to view.
However, the US is ranked very low for healthcare. You'd think, with the fact you spend more on healthcare than any other nation in the world, and are ranked so low would be an indicator to someone like yourself who seems to value pragmatism, that "Oh this isn't working".
But no, anything "Socialist" is bad in your eyes. Can I ask you something? Should the Police and Firefighters be privatized again? Clearly we can't trust the government to do it. Your argument is clear as day on that front for medical care, why not policing and firefighting?
Not in the short term it isn't, which is unfortunately the timescale these parasites work on
Oh, I want lots of changes. The current system is the worst kind of bastardization of government control and free market. It's one of the most regulated industries in the world. I would even have a hard time calling it a free market at all. The actual freedom in the market is miniscule.
Here's your diamond.
Lol, where did I say I support universal healthcare exactly?
I'm interested in your views on it since you're withholding them.
Also, thanks for that second half of your sentence. Necessary in full.
Not on a forum in this context we don't
We're not congressmen arguing over the implementation of it.
We're forum posters arguing over the concept of it
Your country as a nation, would rather spend billions on healthcare for minor results, than get it's shit together and have a government control it like every other nation does. You don't need the detailed breakdown of it to understand that it's not nearly as hard to do as you've made it out to be. If it was, all of us inferior nations wouldn't have had it for so much longer than you guys.
Hell, even congressmen don't have a complete proposal, and that's my point. At this point in time, the socializing of US medicine is a hypothetical idea. It doesn't have a real implementation with which to judge. I can't judge promises or hopeful ideas. Yes, it would be wonderful to have a system that provided free health coverage to every single person. That's a nice thought. It really is. I have no inherently dislike of it.
The question is whether we can actually achieve that without a myriad of unintended consequences like a stifling of the development of new medicine (most drug makers make the majority of their money from the US market, even those based in other countries), a clobbering of our national budget (which is already happening under a much more limited version of socialized Medicine), undesired rationing, etc.
Without a real proposal I have no way to evaluate how we can move from the nice ideas to the real outcomes.
It's funny how you leave out ANY AND ALL of the context behind the "Exemplary health outcomes".
Namely that you have the money to pay for said medical care. Most people don't, and the insurance industry that exists in the United States is the most gouging and irresponsible one in North America(Kinda funny/Sad how Mexico has a better insurance industry than the US, globally ranked).
The context is important. Sure, you have good health outcomes. For the rich, for the wealthy, for the upper middle class with proper coverage, and for literally everyone else in your society, that is NOT TRUE.
I think a good way to construct a proposal, or evaluate at the least, is to take a look at other countries with the proposed system or similar systems already in use.
Here's a proposal by the Center for American Progress and an accompanying article that mentions some fallouts with it.
Also, our national budget is clobbered much more by our obese ( and unaccountable ) military and defense budgets.
Everyone breaks out abacus when the affordability of universal healthcare is a discussion but not so much for military expenditures.
What is pretty baffling to me, Sgman, is that you somehow seem completely incapable of taking any concrete stances on any issue and yet somehow seem to always come out on the side of conservatives. You consistently dance around making any sort of concise ideological stance and instead opt to argue the overfine details or semantics.
Can you give me a direct answer to this question: Do you or do you not believe that every American should be guaranteed health care regardless of their ability pay for it?
the "Yes, it would be wonderful to have..." non-answer dodge is actually pretty revealing
Before the passage of Obamacare, 85% of people had insurance and ~85% of the people with insurance were satisfied with it. That means about 3/4 of the population of the US was satisfied with their coverage, quite a bit more than just the "upper middle class" and above. Generally, people were fine with what they had. (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/10/george-will/will-says-95-percent-people-health-insurance-are-s/)
Healthcare is incredibly complex, and there's a lot more to it than you're letting on. The vast majority of health outcomes have been getting consistently better over time, in both the US and other western nations with socialized medicine. The interesting thing is that while US numbers are generally worse, they also have very similar rates of change. So the two lines, one for the US, and one for other western nations, have been running parallel for decades. Mathematically, the derivative is almost identical, but there's a starting point shift for the US.
There are a lot of cultural differences between the US and other countries that also contribute to it's worse healthcare outcomes. Some of these might include:
a heterogeneous society, more homogeneous societies are easier to treat
Less healthy eating and exercise habbits
More risky behavior. Car accidents rates are higher in the US, for example.
There are also quite a few health outcomes where the US does well, like:
Cancer survival rates
ease of getting optional surgury
wait time for surgery and/or testing equipment
heart attack survival rates
stroke survival rates
chance of vaginal rupture during birth
It's really not helpful to just call the US system worse off when it comes to the actual health care being provided. Yes, the US spends more when it comes to both private and public spending.
As long as they hurt each other, the US wins.
This is really more pendantic than it needs to be since it is pretty clear what I am saying, but I'll refine my question anyway.
Do you or do you not believe that every American should be guaranteed health services without incurring financial hardship?
Still too broad. He’ll probably ask you to quantify what “financial hardship” is or what “guaranteed health services” entail, or something equally stupid.
We already know empirically that it's a good idea. The US ranks the worst among the developed nations in terms of healthcare, yet we pay the most per capita. Every other modern nation has some form of universal system that covers everybody, the healthcare quality is better, and they pay less than we do. Everybody else figured out a way to do it, but we can't? None of us here are politicians or economists: the fine details can be legislated in Congress as they're the ones who should know the system best. But it's without question the right direction to head in regardless of whatever specific disagreements you have in terms of coverage and how Medicare would be restructured etc. Those are separate conversations. If you're opposed to universal healthcare in general and aren't sure it's the right direction to go in, then you're either ignorant or opposed to the idea on principle. Just be fucking honest and say so, dude.
lmao what no
Just because people were insured doesn't mean they were "satisfied" with their coverage. It means they literally had zero choice but to insure themselves or fucking die/ go bankrupt from your fucking awful private medical system. Compared to that having to pay for shitty coverage is going to be considered satisfying when you literally do no know better or think the actual better solution is some communist plot to feminise your babies.
The polling question is a super vague "generally how satisfied are you with your coverage", it doesn't have any real room for nuance and is being run against a population that is used to such a system to the point that it's ingrained into your backwards ass culture.
Just 👏Get 👏Nationalised 👏Healthcare
You know...
For someone so concerned with statistics and studies being misleading, you sure are using that in a misleading way.
Most americans are relatively, to wildly ignorant about the options available to other nations, or what their insurance coverage even covers.
I almost guarantee the average american citizen has ABSOLUTELY no understanding of the complexities of insurance coverage.
So saying they're satisfied with legalese jargon intentionally written and designed to be as hard to understand as possible, and to be as exclusionary as possible, are "satisfied" with their coverage is doing nothing but being dishonest.
everybody loves their insurance until they actually use it. I don't understand why people get beat up by insurance all the time and they still run in fear at the mention of medicare for all
You're right. Here, I'll give the most detailed definition I can in case he decides he actually wants to state his position on the record.
@Sgman91
Do you support a system in the US that guarantees that all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship, including the full spectrum of essential, quality health services, from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care?
Embodied in this system being three related objectives:
Equity in access to health services - everyone who needs services should get them, not only those who can pay for them;
The quality of health services should be good enough to improve the health of those receiving services; and
People should be protected against financial-risk, ensuring that the cost of using services does not put people at risk of financial harm.
(definition courtesy of WHO)
Financial hardship being defined as the inability to pay reasonable and necessary living expenses, generally including rent or mortgage, utilities, food, transportation and health care.
(definition courtesy of the IRS)
Every medical professional is laughing at you in unison.
*multiple working examples of healthcare systems which are objectively better than the current US system. They have their flaws but the benefits vastly outweigh them*
Sgman91 "Well I'd love to implement such a system too bad it isn't possible no complete proposal oh well haha"
I mean the right to defend ourselves against a hypathetical government takeover is worth the tens of thousands killed annually to firearms deaths.
welp sorry he's gone
Can't say I'm surprised. I'm sure he'll just pop into the next thread with the same stuff and the cycle continues
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