Health Care

I read your post and I'll try to reply to it soon. Late for work now.

Odd that the U.S has top notch doctors... You would assume that Americans would be healthier, yet other nations that supposedly don't have top notch or up to par doctors are far more healthier than the U.S.

*I'm from the U.S.*

I look forward to it.

Edit 10:28pm: Aww you let me down, I was honestly looking forward for another round of mental sparring.

I think I should tell you a little about myself. I scored in the top 10% of my high school but could not continue to college because my family had no money. So I turned to the military. I took their ASVAB test, basically the military's SAT, and scored a 91. That score says that only 9% of the people who took the test scored higher than me. However I was turned away because I had surgery on my kneecap during freshmen year of high school. So I have no money for college and can't turn to my government for help and yet you say this is MY failing?

If what you said was true, then there would have been many scholarships available to you. You didn't take advantage of it. Your loss, your failure.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

The waiting time for said scholarships are desperately long. It has gotten to the point where you might have to wait up to three years to receive them.

Did you just graduate this year? If not, then you slacked off somewhere. Like, during high school when you should have been setting up your scholarships. I personally knew a girl who received a "free ride" scholarship to an ivy league school before she even graduated. Not to mention she got several grants on top of that.

This is strangely optimistic from me but, the only person stopping you is yourself.

"Where there's a will, yadda yadda, etc,etc"

That is neither here not there. So, can we get back on topic? I wanna see some facts flying people!

Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem? Seems like we could really use that money.

The US health care system is a joke...Only the high and moghty can afford the best money can buy while the middle/low class get the ass end of the deal. Other countries I seen have complete health care coverage but at the cost of higher taxes but i thinks thats fantastic that everyone can at least have health care in the time of need.

Well look. I think you and I are almost have a debate on political outlook, rather than health care. I don't trust the government to handle my well being either. From what I've seen through my experience abroad, and with what I've read of bill the government won't be choosing what kinds of conditions can or can't be covered. They won't be choosing your doctor, or denying pre-existing conditions. That's already better than private insurance. The public option of the bill is the only portion that sets up a government payment system. So essentially that's all it will be doing, making payments, not making choices, that's up to you and your doctor, and it will continue to be under the public option.

The public option will have much lower costs. There isn't an overhead, and there isn't a profit system in place. Nobody is making a profit off of Medicare and nobody has been for over 40 years since it's been in place. Competition requires that private insurance lower costs in order to exist. Now of course I don't disagree with what you quoted from the economist (that money needs to come from somewhere) but I'll reiterate what I've said before. The plan will pay for itself through A) 2/3's coverage paid for by tax & fed dollars already being spent on uninsured, take that money we keep paying for these people and give them access to preventative medicine and the ability to see doctors before hand. B)subsidizes towards insurance companies regulated:



Any economist can say what they know to be true (and economists often disagree with each other) but it's also not hard to see a politically opposed opinion even in the voice of yet another economist if he has something to say on behalf of his constituents. He is right to say the money needs to come from somewhere. He is wrong to say that your taxes will increase, for certain obvious reasons. Taxes will not increase, and in practice we should see less tax dollars per person being spent on health care and more people covered.




Of course you are paying for it. We are all paying for it right now.



Those figures are annually, the causation are the uninsured. Evidence shows that costs go down when citizens are health and have access to medicine when needed. The uninsured are a liability to us all, simply put:



http://www.amsa.org/uhc/CaseForUHC.pdf

The government will have to pay for some expenses, indeed it already does. Health Affairs estimates $65–$130 billion per year of federal and tax dollars spent on uninsured patients. There is a cost for universal health care and it is estimated between 34 and 69 billion annually. The cost for UHC outweighs (or I should say under-weighs since it saves money) the liability of the uninsured by almost twice as much. Even at the low end, if we only spend 65 billion now, and end up spending 69 the difference are negligible given that we currently spend roughly 2.4 trillion each year on health care expenses alone. 17% of our entire GDP (compare that to the 6-11% rates on countries with UHC living in the top 10% brackets of quality of life and care). I assume that estimates suggest a median, and if so the medians should correlate to roughly twice as much being spent on the uninsured.


England's health care system does have problems. Their system isn't a good example of how UHC should function (and does function) in other developed countries around the world.




A person taking care of themselves is better, yes. You can not make people take care of themselves, you can't wheel them into a hospital against their will. You can offer them affordable coverage so they *can* take care of their problems. A penalty system (fine) isn't preferable by any means but even if implemented doesn't guarantee that everyone who needs care will go to a hospital. The uninsured don't refuse to go to a hospital because they don't want to take care of themselves, they do it because they can't afford it. It's been 150 since we've started to discuss universal coverage to health care, and in that time the amount of the uninsured has only continued to grow. It's obvious that you can't motivate people to work harder through a benefit system. And even if you could it's unreasonable to think that all the poor people of the country would suddenly eradicate due to motivation. The best way to empower a country and strengthen it's economy is through the middle class. The class currently being hit by new uninsured rates and higher premiums. The best way to keep them healthy and insured is a single payer government system. We won't get that, we'll get a public option at best but it's a good start. If you want to look at each penny and dime you are going to find them all in the hands of the insurance companies. We can put a cap on their profits or offer them competition. I think the latter is a better choice.

So here were are, I think we had a good debate over this but I'm seeing some confusion. We are going in circles a bit. You say It'll cost us more money and raise our taxes. I say it won't. You say the healthy will be paying for the unhealthy. I say we already are (and paying more than we would be with UHC). We need a solution and it won't come by regulating the insurance industry (although that's a good start) we won't cap their profits or dictate their premiums. We'll find the waste in the uninsured who will continue to stay that way without aid, and you and I will continue to pay for them (unless you want to argue that hospitals should be allowed to deny emergency care to uninsured patients - a claim that I'd view as unethical, unmoral, and downright evil). The only solution is to catch up to the rest of the world that's already solved this problem and implement some kind of UHC system.

Health care reform will pass. I can guarantee you that. I'm not sure if we'll get the public-option but I believe there is a good chance we will. For now most of us are going to have to wait and see what the consequences (good and bad) of the system will be, but I stand by my convictions and I think the population on the whole will have much to gain from it.

Some further reading if you like,
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031006/goverment-funded-health-care-were-already-23-there
http://www.amsa.org/uhc/CaseForUHC.pdf
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

Cheers for now.

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The ability to be healthy and happy should have nothing to do with "slacking off". Access to health should be a right and not dictated by notions of meritable work ethics.

I've read everything and I'll reply as soon as I can gather up some data. I'll be out of town, working the next few days so keep an eye out.



I was referencing his inability to get education scholarships.

I know. I assumed we were still talking about him waiting due to surgery expenses although I see now that he didn't specify that in his post.

Yeah, he was talking about the scholarships. Although I guess I should point out that since Fiery_penguin_of_doom mentioned these programs, some of which I was unaware of, I managed to get one and will be able to start school in Ohio next year. So I guess I owe Fiery_penguin_of_doom thanks.

The government option is government controlled insurance. The notion of "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" is a bold lie. The public option would suit companies more since they could dump the cost of insuring it's workers with better plans onto the "public option". This would cause people to lose, all around better coverage from the employer issued insurance policies. The economic incentives for companies to dump their workers into the government plan would be SO huge that there isn't even an analogy to compare it to.



From the horses mouth Also

Link. The CBO director himself has stated that the legislation will have "minimal savings if any"





While health insurance isn't really a tax it is a government mandated expense. Depending on, which route you want to take. Single payer or Government insurance?
Single payer system will cause taxes to increase because the government is already in the hole and adding a new load of spending to take care of everybody. To increase deficit spending without attempting to increase revenue from taxes is bad fiscal policy. Any kid in High school econ can tell you, that you can't spend your way out of debt. Taxes will go up in one way, shape or form or another. Income, Sales, inheritance, death, payroll,etc. Taxes will go up somewhere.

As for the uninsured, increased medical cost. This only accounts for hospital and care taking bills. The reason is, they can not collect on the debt owed to them by the uninsured so they pass the cost onto those with insurance or those without insurance who can afford to pay out of pocket. This causes insurance rates to increase to cover the extra cost the uninsured are weighing on us. So in a way yes, the insured and already paying for the uninsured.

As for the X amount of dollars are spent of health care costs. That figure is derived from the medicaid and medicare cost. A quick search on Google and you'll see figures for how fast the programs are outpacing the economy even at it's peak in 07. This figure (X% of every dollar is spent on Health care) is irrelevant to the conversation of Health Care reform in relation to the mandated insurance legislation. Having the Insurance companies take over the cost of the uninsured by forcing them to make bad business decisions isn't a good economic decision. The increased expenses the currently uninsured (we'll just use those with pre-existing conditions as the only uninsured and ignore people like myself who are healthy and choose to forgo insurance, self employed, etc) will only cause the companies to either raise premium costs or cause the Federal Government to step in an Nationalize the Health Care industry. These are the people who couldn't even rush "Cash for Clunkers" in a timely manner.




That's an understatement of the highest caliber.


To close out the post I'll put some facts and myths about the uninsured. First spoiler is from an article by the Business and Media Institute. The second spoiler is information taking directly from the website of the U.S. Census Beureau for 2008 (most current records).







If me, sounding like a prick helped you get into college then no thanks is necessary. The notion that I helped motivate someone to better themselves is all I need. Best of luck getting accepted and eventually graduating.