marc9000 writes:
It eases their burden of having to pay for those socialist policies. Despite all the political rhetoric, it’s not all that complicated. Government spending has to be paid for by the productive citizenry of that government.
You left out what the middle class would not be paying if these social programs were put in place, namely private health insurance. Single payer healthcare coupled with a progressive tax code would result in a net reduction in the money spent for healthcare by the middle class. The middle class in other first world nations with single payer healthcare (i.e. socialism) spend way less on healthcare than we do.
Okay, so you have one area (elimination of insurance company involvement) where cost would be saved in a government run system. Is that the only one you have? If so, after considering the brand new cost of more government employees to run the new system, do you still see a large enough difference in those two amounts to solve all the problems of medical costs in the U.S.?
I’m no big fan of insurance companies, they tend to lobby politicians to pass laws that restrict liberty to promote safety, thereby benefiting insurance companies bottom lines by supposedly reducing the number of injury claims. But the U.S. has higher rates of obesity than people in other western nations that do have government health care. Should addressing this problem be part of government health care? Should the government pass ‘sugar control’ laws? I don’t think so and suspect you might not either, but I think government health czars would be much more likely to impose sugar control, than would insurance company lobbyists.
50 years ago money spent on healthcare was about 5% of GDP and everyone had access. Today, healthcare is 15% of GDP and many people can not get access to healthcare and/or are being bankrupted by medical bills.
Part of the reason for that is current government involvement. 50 years ago, it was a lot harder (or at least less common) for someone without insurance to go to the emergency room and get free treatment, for the cost to be absorbed by those with insurance. 50 years ago, states didn’t have near as many laws requiring insurance companies to pay for things like fertility treatments, annual checkups, and the latest high tech power chairs. And last but not least, 50 years ago the insurance industry didn’t have anything like todays ambulance chasing lawyers to prop up. I can easily remember when law firms weren’t allowed to advertise on television.
marc9000 writes:
Not many, because they didn’t have near the appetite for alcohol and illegal drugs at their fraternity parties as college kids do today.
What? What does this have to do with tuition outpacing cost of living and wages?
You said student loans, not tuition and cost of living. I was merely making the point that
amounts of student loans have a lot to do with ‘wants’, rather than needs. The decline of morality in the U.S over the past 50 years includes a decline in financial responsibility — as well as a decline in ethics of those selling students these loans.
marc9000 writes:
Because it doesn’t have much detail about the details? The detail is out there, but it’s not going to be found at NPR, or ABC. Here is a link you won't find in the mainstream U.S. media.
Because it is wrong.
Evidence that it’s wrong? That was BBC, not some crazed Republican website. Or is it wrong simply because you want it to be?
I would never tell a Tea Partier that if they don't like taxes in the US to move to country with fewer taxes. We want to fix our country, not move to another one. For some strange reason, we feel patriotic and want to live in America, warts and all.
It IS strange, because you don’t seem to like traditional America. James Madison once said; "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." That’s the spirit of U.S. government that Tea Partier’s would like to see restored.
marc9000 writes:
Why has it been necessary? Because there are more people – because civilization is more complex? Even so, is the question of affordability not an important one?
Affordability of healthcare is not an important issue for the middle class? Do you really think that?
That’s not what I was saying. I’m saying that just because life is more complicated than it was in the horse and buggy days, doesn’t mean that government has to grow to unaffordable levels to oversee the new complications. The U.S. government lived within its means for 150 years, though those years were simpler ones. Even in more complex times of today (more people, more technology) affordability should DICTATE that it continue to live within its means.
Without the EPA and laws punishing polluters why would companies spend money to prevent pollution that would otherwise go towards profit? In my area of the country, mining gold involves leeching with cyanide. Leakage of the cyanide is a HUGE issue around here because if it gets into the watershed in the mountainous regions it will destroy local and very senstive ecosystems. Without EPA protections there is nothing stopping these mining operations from spilling cyanide into the local watershed.
With a few rare exceptions, we got along fine without the EPA until 1970. I admit that the time for it had probably come by then. But like any government agency, it got too big and intrusive. My earlier link about MTBE is proof that it can sometimes do more harm than good. Cleanliness comes second to the EPA, its first priority is its political action. Power and money. The same greed that you believe guides business, without the free markets to help keep it honest.
marc9000 writes:
What doesn’t make sense to me, (and about 150 million other Americans) is how replacing competing insurance companies with one more massive government bureaucracy is going to make health care less costly.
Let's compare what we spend to our neighbors up north:
"In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714. The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%."
Not FoundThat 6.7k we spend doesn't even cover everyone. There are still millions of americans without health coverage. With a socialist program and 3.6k per capita Canada is able to cover EVERYONE. If this competition is driving down prices, and government systems are less effecient than a free market, then why are Americans spending twice as much as every other first world socialist country on healthcare? Why are the Republicans supporting a system that doubles the cost of healthcare for the middle class?
Much of the research and development in medicine comes from the U.S., while Canada and other countries take advantage of it without having to foot the bill. Countries with government run health care don’t have as many high tech medical devices like CAT scans or MRI’s as the U.S. does. The U.S. has one of the highest cancer survival rates in the world. Do you think these characteristics of U.S. medicine will stay the same, or get better, when the government takes it all over?
What you are ignoring is that private health insurance companies are competing for customers they can make a profit on. They are competing for healthy individuals with good incomes. They are NOT competing for the business of sick people. On top of that, health insurance supplies ZERO HEALTHCARE. Hospitals supply healthcare, not insurance companies. Private health insurance is nothing more than a middle man that takes a profit without supplying any healthcare.
And the government isn’t going to do the exact same thing? Only with no competiton and and EPA style arrogance?
Also, a single payer system does not prevent people from buying supplemental insurance for the gaps they perceive in the social program. This is true in every first world western socialist system I know of. This insurance is often very cheap because it has to cover very little.
If the government allows it. It’s all done by the same doctors and hospitals, how can they buy their way out of a long wait? All those without any type of insurance (the majority with the voting power) are going to have a lot to say about that.
marc9000 writes:
If we have single payer health insurance, why not single payer automobiles?
Or public transportation? Oh yeah, we already have that.
What little public transportation that we do have, (compared to all of it) it’s still not single payer.
What next, public schools systems? Oh yeah, we already have that.
That falls under the classification of something that [most] people don’t have the capability of providing for themselves.
Or socialist road building programs? Yep, we have that too.
Nothing socialist about public roads. Public posting of roads is in the U.S. Constitution.
marc9000 writes:
Have you ever checked into the details of the decision making process of who gets what care, how long waiting periods are etc., of government health care in foreign countries?
Yes, I have. I have even spoken to a handful of doctors from the UK at some of the conferences I have attended. In 99.9% of cases it is the doctor who decides which patients get what care. Health Services in the UK do a great job of researching which procedures are most effective, and these are the recommendations they give to doctors.
Most effective for what? Curing disease and keeping people out of pain, or running them through the system, keeping everything moving, pacifying doctors and assistants who may not be happy with the allowance the government gives them? Do doctors of different skill levels all make the same money?
This is quite different from the American system where it is insurance companies who decide which people get what care based on profit instead of the health of the individual.
It’s usually the people themselves through the free market of the insurance company they choose to deal with, or their families that decide in the current U.S. system. It’s true that the system may run more smoothly if a bureaucrat in Washington makes some decisions however. A stranger’s death is much easier to take, isn’t it?
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