Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Universal Health Care for USA

I ran across a blog kept by one of the victims of my country's lack of universal health care.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/07/slowly-trying-to-regroup.html

This dude sometimes has to choose between food and medicine. The linked page includes a PayPal link, if you can afford to help. Any amount is appreciated.

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My country's Corporate Congress and Preznit Hope'n'Change [tm] can give away godzillions of dollars of our tax money to the same Wall Street buccaneers that got us into this financial mess in the first place, but apparently we can't take care of honest folks who lack the necessities of existence, or at least civilized existence. I guess the DINOcrats aren't so different from the Elephascists [aka GOP] after all.

BTW, a "godzillion" is a number the size of Godzilla.

Y'know, I considered myself a Libertarian back in 1980 [I turned 17 that year], although I never joined that party, or any other. Now, while I am not a Marxist, my politics would probably be OK with Gates.

I'm pretty scared of anything our Imperial Government Inc. comes up with regarding health care.

It seems to me that health care is something that should really be dealt with at a local level. It used to be the case* that when a town was founded, one of the first things the townspeople would do is recruit a doctor for the community (along with a schoolteacher, sheriff, etc.). It seems to me that we should somehow build off that model of thinking it as a local responsibility rather than trying to institute any kind of national health policy.

*By "used to be the case", I mean this is how it is presented in Hollywood movies, which I have complete confidence are completely historically accurate.

Don't even get me started.

I have a dormant hereditary condition that's going to run into big bucks in the future. mr_cleome has some stuff he manages with meds right now. By some accounts, almost half of all bankruptcies filed in the United States can be traced back to insured people for whom the coverage well ran dry. At least bankruptcy is better than dying, right?

There's no excuse for the system we've got in place, and it's a big part of why I walked away from the two-party tango about a decade ago. There was a brief attempt at reconciliation in 2002, but since then, I haven't been back.

The mind-blowing insensitivity of people like President Hope, blathering about how "We'll make the employers cover you," when millions of us don't even have @#$%*! employers, is not lost on me, either. Stick your "compassionate liberalism" someplace, Hopey. I didn't take this nonsense from the last figurehead, and I'm not impressed with it from you, either.

Oh, and Kid C:

I know of at least one Libertarian blogger who has declared that he considers Socialized Medicine to be a necessary evil for a well-functioning society. For whatever that's worth.

Interesting, here in the UK we have a free at the point of use health service paid from taxes and we spend far less per capita on healthcare than the US.

If anyone even suggests scrapping our National Health Service their political careers are dead instantly. We look at the US in amazement. The richest country in the world and not willing to look after its sick. It's madness.

Remember this is the UK of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. We aren't a communist state but a true democracy that CHOOSES to have heathcare paid from taxes because we know it is the best way. The US terms like liberal and socialist are just words used by those that can afford healthcare to avoid looking after those that can't. They actually mean nothing in this context. The opposite of liberal is fascist.

I don't really know anyone locally that has NO access to health services. We do have county services open to all and emergency services at hospitals. Locality can be an issue, rural areas and such but socialize medicine doesn't solve that problem.


"Universal health care." What is that? Who is that suppose to help that is not already being helped?

It pains me to see a system in which people that have worked, continue to work, or do public service, would have to go broke to get a bone set because their (far too expensive) COBRA has run out but it pains me to see a system backlogged by those that have never done a thing in their life towards the common good.


To ME, health care is an "earned" right but one that is lost a bit too easily when the ability to earn goes away.

Ultimately is doesn't matter who I think deserves health care, it's what system best supports the most and socialized medicine doesn't seem to come out on top in that debate.

Hey, SAL, whats the tax rate over there, as well as the unemployment rate?

Tax rates:

Starting rate for savings 10% £0 - £2,440
Basic tax rate 20% £0 - 37,400
Higher tax rate 40% Over £37,400

exchange rates currently:

http://www.x-rates.com/

Unemployment rates current:

http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/jobmarket/unemployment.htm

From my reading, you have unemployment rates in the twenty percent range. Thats very high. When America last had unemployment rates that high, Jimmy Carter was in the white house and the nation was in the worst recession since the great depression.

Not only that, but I've read stories about things not covered by the public health care system, and having to wait months for doctor's appointments for things like cancer, etc.

Its easy to look askance at our system when a nation has gotten used to their own system. I'm not saying your system is good or bad, but you have much higher tax rates at much lower income ranges and from what I can read, your buying pound per dollar is much lower than ours. So, while we have very rich and very poor like you do, there seems to be much less percentage wise of a middle class, which makes up the largest percentage of our population, which would have to be taxed at a much higher rate to sustain a system like yours.

And from what I have read, while you have the success stories like Branson, most true wealth seems to be of a much more handed down variety. We have some of that here, but there is a much greater percentage of selfmade wealth from what I have read.

And frankly, I don't want my government to have any more control over my life than is absolutely, barest minimum possible. I don't care if its dem or repub. And while I genuinely feel for those having it tough due to medical costs, I have a hard enough time feeding me and mine, as do others. There is also the law of least common denominator, and anyone that thinks they can live comfortably according to their own criteria, is not going to work more to have the benefit go to someone else. Thats simple human nature. Russia had major troubles motivating it's populace under a communist regime, even at the point of a gun. So china has had as well.

America was founded on the freedom of the individual to succeed. What too many people forget is that it is also the freedom for people to fail as well. It sounds great to say "health care for everyone" but when the codicle to that is "as long as you do it our way" it isn't worth it. America used to have the highest of education standards. The it was federalized and the standards started to drop and have been in freefall since. Why would we have any reason to believe that doing the same thing to health care would be any different?

SAL, I have yet to meet anyone from England or Canada who even jokingly wants to swap their system for ours. Maybe the very, very well-to-do in both nations would like that. But those aren't the folks I run into online.

I've been on the CBC boards and heard Canadians pick apart their system down to the atomic level. I know one blogger in Alberta who writes frequently about allotment problems in "boom" areas where funding doesn't keep up with the base of citizens that need it. There's also the problems in rural areas vs. urban ones. Still, if I tried to tell any of these folks that what they really needed to solve their problems was the American plan, they'd laugh in my face. (Of course, I'd be laughing, too. )

rickshaw, no offense, but if you think that corporations doling out healthcare aren't already forcing us suckers into "doing it their way," well... I don't know what to tell you.



I would concur that compulsory private insurance is the worst of all possible worlds, which is probably why it's exactly what we're going to get.

(snip)

BB:

Quote

...but it pains me to see a system backlogged by those that have never done a thing in their life towards the common good...

Here's the problem, BB. You might earnestly point to me or somebody else and say (hypothetically), "She hasn't done a thing for the common good." Maybe you sincerely think that's so. However, somebody further up the food chain can just as readily point at you and say (hypothetically, in her/his own opinion) "He hasn't done a thing for the public good."

Personal judgments like this are very much "live by the sword, die by the sword." There's always going to be somebody out there ready to proclaim that you haven't earned as much as you believe yourself to have earned.

I might add that if somebody's sick, they're not going to affect themselves alone. There's a reason it's called "public health" even if there's ninety people on my block and only ten of them have the flu this week. So whether or not I approve of their lifestyle isn't really the issue. I have sound, practical reasons to want all of us healthy whether I like these folks personally or not.

Cleome, I never said that corporations didn't. And some of the abuses they throw out there are truly horrendous.

But...

I've worked for local county government. Far far FAR to many people that work there are people that could not get hired anywhere else, that don't give a rats behind about doing their job well because they know that its almost impossible to fire them for various reasons, and simply don't give a damn. The show up, do enough to get through, and collect their paycheck.

I really don't want someone like that in charge of so large a portion of my private life. At least under a private system, I get to choose the systems that screw me over. Be damned if I will be told by the police, the president, or the pope how i will be screwed over and I better shut up and take it. Didn't happen with slick willy and his harpy wife, ain't gonna happen with Odama.

I'm ex-County, too, rickshaw. Maybe we could start a support group.



Thing is, what we've got now is pretty much a rancid alliance of public-private forces. All Clinton and/or Obama have in answer to our problems is taking that alliance one step further. So I think it's just a red herring when pundits treat this as a battle between public and private forces. I don't think that it is.

and if you want the truth, here's the rawboned, hard edged truth that no one dares to speak...

Each system of government is geared towards efficiency. Almost all systems can be efficient...but...

The trouble comes in when people start factoring in the human side. Society as a whole has to be productive. It must if society is to function well. Naturally, some will be more productive than others in different ways. But society as a whole insists on forcing the ones that are productive to support those that are not productive, may never have been productive, or may never be productive again. And that is when the system starts to break down. My heart truly goes out those crippled by infirmity. I've been there myself with a crushed leg. My father has had debilitating strokes and heart trouble, as well as cancer, pancreatitous, etc. I have a sister that is mentally handicapped because at her birth a doctor screwed up. So trust me, I know.

and if society didn't support them, they would wither and die, but society would be more efficient. Thats bald truth. Its harsh and cold...and no society wants to be seen that way, the people in it don't want to be thought of that way. So, we decide we want to help people. And we do. And that, like it or not, is when the system tends towards inefficiency. Resources are used to prop up those that cannot do and will never be cost effective.


The problem we all face is...where's the line? where do you stop putting money out there to carry those that cannot carry themeselves? That's the real question. It's the hard question, the one that people shy away from and cover with platitudes and upspeak. And there is a constant battle over where the line is, and most likely there will always BE a battle.

I don't know where the line is. I cannot say. I admit to being swayed by the troubles my own family has encountered over the years. Problem is, everyone else is in the same boat. So, how much do you load on the camel's back before it breaks?

I honestly don't know, but I dont' want some nine to five just there for a paycheck person deciding the fate of my family.

Well, we will need a catchy title...Hmmmm

Suffering
Humans
Interupted
Terms of goverment employ

Whatcha think?

Well no, HERE's the problem cleome...

all systems, health care or otherwise require judgements, right? NO judgements, a pay as you go system is the live by the sword, die by the sword system.

How hard is it to determine who has paid into a system, whether that be with $ or with work credits for public service? Children obviously a different concern and all systems have their cracks.

Health care is a non-elastic economy in which the government has a role, just like communications and transportation. It is vital to the workings and success of the country.

We talk of "health reform" because that's a buzz the common person gets but it's really "insurance reform."

We presently have a system funded using insurance companies as middle men, a capitalized form of socialism. Do insurance companies have the state of the art in medicine as their primary goal? No, that's not their business. That's why as a government, we permit them to operate but with oversight.

Do you have a system that will encourage advancements in delivery and quality of health services that is funded by a middle man, that doesn't require oversight, doesn't require judgements?

BB:

(snip)

Quote

...How hard is it to determine who has paid into a system, whether that be with $ or with work credits for public service? Children obviously a different concern and all systems have their cracks...

In public works, everyone who can pay does pay, to some degree. Think of parks, libraries and the highway system, for instance. However, I'm not sure if I want to suddenly decree that, for example, homeless people can't access parks, libraries, and the highway system anymore. (Because, you know, aren't they people who haven't paid their way, at least lately?)

Granted, even here in the very heart of Touchy-Feely Liberal Land, there are plenty of people who do think that. The more conservative they consider themselves to be, the more likely they are to be blunt in their statement of same.

But I've encountered plenty of touchy-feely types who think the same way, but feel compelled to couch the sentiment in different terms for the sake of good manners.

Of course, you're correct: There has to be oversight and judgment. Funds have to be allotted and somebody must be charged with deciding how that works. Perhaps I was unclear in trying above to explain that I consider my personal judgments regarding what my neighbor gets (or doesn't get) to be a different thing than what public policy determines he or she gets.

(In other words, I can get riled up about violent crime and yell, "Hang 'em all," in an unguarded moment. However, it doesn't follow that I want, or expect, the legal system to behave in that way. The same applies to other form of public policy: I can't think of anything that, more than public health, embodies the idea that "we'd better all hang together or we're bound to hang separately.")

IOW, I don't care if you're out of work, or for how long. I don't care if you finished high school or went to college or about your GPA. I don't care if you have ten kids or two kids or no kids. I don't care if you're struggling to quit smack, alcohol, gambling or Cheetos. If I've got the right to it, so have you. End of story.

well and good and clear but, practical?

If it's not doable to provide a service equally to all, then what? Nobody gets it? Limit the level of service only to what can be afforded for everyone?

What do you say to the parent whose child is dieing with a condition that falls outside of what the country can afford for all? Sorry?

I've gotten good inexpensive medical service in China, Bolivia, and Gabon. By good, I mean, it was clear what was wrong with me, the cause and the cure but when many are saying "universal health care" they are not limiting their thoughts to those cases. When politicians looking for votes are saying "universal health care" they're not even considering the limits it implies, they're looking for easy votes.


We can afford parks for all. You build them. Cut the grass. Per person expenditure is not that much. There's little overhead. Little research to make it viable... No real impetus to advance the state-of-the-art and a country doesn't really survive because it has better parks. Medical advancement requires more than can be afforded for all.

Insurance reform is where the problem lies IMO, not health reform.

Ah, but the insurance companies run the world. Don't believe it? Check out the donations to politicians. Check out how many times the votes go in favor of the insurance companies in congress. Banks don't own insurance companies, Insurance companies own banks.

People lived for decades without the use of seatbelts. But, some little guy somewhere with a green hat and an actuarial table or one of the first computers ran the figures and decided that seat belts would save them money. Not lives, MONEY. Suddenly, there is this great movement to enforce seat belts. but, they couldn't say "Hey, we are gonna save money if you use seatbelts, and thats whats important." so they couch it in terms of "saving lives". Politicians see an easy vote win, the touchy feely folk get to feel good about themselves, and suddenly, just driving down the street can cost you a fine, even if you are doing nothing wrong.

In court, if you are not wearing a seat belt, and someone hits you, you are automatically guilty. It could be a t-bone impact where the seatbelt holds you in place as the car slams into your door at 60 miles an hour, but YOU are guilty.

Look at the worlds largest business'. count how many are insurance companies, or have major stock percentages held by insurance companies. Look at their profits, and then think about that the next time the take premiums from people for forty years, have a natural disaster, pay cents on the dollar, and then leave that area with decades worth of monies.

As for that child, if its a disease that calls for an orphan drug, try getting a company that didn't specifically preclude that disease from coverage to pay it.

Insurance companies are professional welchers. They take the bet (and thats all it is, they bet that you wont have happen what happens in the time frame they set out) and then go to any lenghts necessary to avoid paying out.

UK unemployment has nothing to do with the NHS. People need the NHS more when times are hard. Equally because the NHS is just that - a service, it is concerned with preventative and primary care in ways that don't even exist in the states.

Our tax rates again have nothing to do with the Healthcare provision. We pay less on average for healthcare than an American and we have treatment timetables enforceable by law for example cancer patients have to be seen within 48 hours - whatever the rumours spread by the British systems detractors.

If it makes it more palatable, think of everyone paying the same insurance payment to the same insurance company and the company guaranteeing treatment. The difference is that no insurance company would make that guarantee so in the UK the government has taken on the role. And the population is far better off because of it.

Who was it who said a civilized nation is judged on how it treats its sick and aged. By this criteria the US is not a civilized nation.

SAL

Life Expectancy in Britain Falls Behind...

Average life Span

GB: Male 76 Female 81
US: Male 75 Female 81

You're barely ahead of the country that invented McDonald's and the illegal firearm.

(snip)

Cart before horse there, BB. It doesn't make much sense to talk affordability using only extreme examples. Why not just start with the numbers of citizens who can't afford basic care? Either we go without or we go to the Emergency Room, then don't pay for the services.

Call me crazy, but this seems like a really stupid way to dole out care. It actually drives up costs because minor conditions become major ones. Chronic conditions blossom into full-blown emergencies, and so on.

I simply don't believe that the amount of money we spend now for care gives anything close to the value we could get by changing the system. I've worked for insurance companies. They are astoundingly wasteful operations designed to drag a huge amount of money out of us with little or no guarantee of decent routine care.

IOW, our household shells out over $700 a month for private care. Even employed, I rarely saw a doctor for anything other than a painful problem or potentially debilitating issue. Now that I'm out of work, I cross my fingers a lot.

So private insurance, which is completely contingent on my being married at this point, BTW, will eventually sort of cover parts of things up to a very specific point. It's there if I fall down a flight of stairs tomorrow and break my neck. That's the sum total of its usefulness to me. Because if I want an ultrasound to see how my hereditary problem is progressing? Forget it. I can't pay enough to meet the deductible. If I want my nasty old scratched-up eyeglasses replaced? Forget it. I'll be wearing the damn things until they literally fall apart at this point.

Insurance reform and health reform are one and the same in this equation. If more folks get early coverage, the overall burden on us as a society comes down. It may well be that the sick kid with a rare illness in your equation would be able to get his/her care under that circumstance. Even if his condition was very serious, because over all, fewer people would be left untreated to the point where they deteriorated to the same degree.

And I write this as someone who has zero expectation that the current gaggle of politicians gives a flying rat's butt about any of this. Ironic considering that we pay for their care. I was trying to make that clear up above without actually foaming at the mouth, though...

Cleome,

The "extreme" case I presented is not one under the present system, it would be with what you seem to be proposing. I'm not even sure where you see a "cart" and a "horse?" Since you didn't answer my questions, I can't really tell in what way you think "health as a constitutional right" would work?

It would be nice if everyone could get absolutely the best care possible. I live within an hour of two of the best hospitals in the country. Neither is available to me under the present system, nor would they be under socialized medicine.

Has socialed medicine ever been shown to provide superior overall care? People from those countries are not covered for all the things they wish to make us believe, that's why they're coming here for treatment.

I like what SAL told us that there are mandated minimum times to consultation, but then if the cure or treatment isn't available under the system, what's the point?

Telling is that you refer to the inefficiencies of the insurance system. The point I brought up, the solution lies more in insurance reform than in socializing medicine but for different reasons. I don't think you're going to get too many converts to your idea about inefficiencies in the insurance system, relative to government.

From a math POV as I've been taught, it's about the elasticity (effects of competition on pricing) and health is an inelastic system. As a consumer, we have little choice or time to compare pricing while bleeding on the street. But pure socialization? Don't see that either.

BB, I don't recall at any point saying that we needed to amend the Constitution. Where on Earth did you get that?

I did answer your question. You asked me if the money would be there under a reformed system to pay for complicated, expensive procedures. I said, Yes. Because more of us could afford to pay into the system if it were cheaper and fewer of us would reach the point where we had severe illnesses requiring expensive treatments.

Sorry the answer wasn't to your liking.

Also, I don't feel any need to go out in search of "converts." The majority of Americans polled actually agree with me. Search engines are your friend-- if you give "radical" groups like ABC News and the like any credence when they're conducting polls..

Of course, that makes no difference to those running the show, since they don't actually care what we want. rickshaw is right about that much, at least. We can't afford to bribe them like the insurers can, so what we want is pretty much irrelevant.

What do you mean by "pure socialization?" Are you saying that if we offer all Americans access to an expanded Medicare/Medicaid program, American citizens will be lawbreakers if they want to buy private insurance?

Is that a given in other systems? Can Canadian citizens, for instance, be barred from purchasing additional private health insurance if they feel the necessity of doing so? I've never heard of any such thing.

But maybe one of our resident Frenchified Furriners will throw in their opinion on that.

Canadians can buy private health insurance. Might vary a bit by province, though. Canadian health care is actually handled on a province by province basis, although it's partly funded by federal taxes.

SAL, they absolutely DO have something to do with your NHS, as it would apply to the US. You have a much higher unemployment rate than the US, which means that you have lot less people % paying taxes, but have a much higher rate for those that do. So a disproportionate amount is charged to the people that do work. Which means that they work harder for less. Perhaps if your taxation system wasn't so high you would have more capital to put into your system and more people would have jobs.

If you take money from one sector to give to another, it has ripple effects on your economy. I've heard about people that have been on your "dole" system their entire lives, barely living above subsistence. How much better to have jobs that would allow them to pay less in taxes, create more private wealth and take the burden off the private sector.

You have to remember, one of the founding tenants of the US is that each individual is responsible for themselves. We did not want a government that "took care of us" from cradle to grave. And in the course of time, we have developed that with a welfare system.

And you may have laws "mandating" time periods, but its a government system and i can guarantee you that there are abuses there just like there are abuses here. Its like the old russian saying under communism, everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others. Everyone in America has a right to legal defense, and if they cannot afford it, one is provided for them. And when you've got a kid just out of law school going up against a guy that has thirty years under his belt, plays golf with the judge and is a lodge member with him, whom do you think is going to have an edge? Same situation applies, I'm willing to bet money on it. It won't be reported that way, but do some checking around.

And if its a choice between having a chance to significantly better my family's future, or being heavily taxed to pay for mediocre health care that I may or may not need, I'll choose my family every time.

In some respects, one of the reasons americans are...well...looked down upon is our sense of individuality, whereas in other places, falling in with the group is much more prized.