The Health Care Debate

[Joemoney]

My parents slave to provide health care through their business to their employees.  It seriously erodes my fathers ability to compete with his much larger competitors (because they can secure insurance for large numbers of people much more cheaply than my father can).  If he quit offering health care, he'd lose his employees but he may lose his business if he doesn't.  His employees, not educated, but hard working people, have to select their jobs on the basis of affordable health care.  Our system, or lack of it, puts a huge strain on self employed people who do indeed make a big contribution to society.

Health care is not free.  Do you think the cost somehow lowers if you introduce a national health care system?  The cost is always coming out of someone's pocket.  How does anyone benefit if the government gives them healthcare, but they pass the cost right back onto them through increased taxation?

[kclofter]

With all the hype about how the U.S has the best health care in the world, its odd that we certainly aren't the healhest country in the world, and we certainly are not the longest lived. Cheer America all you want, but the reality is that the rest of western world is as healthy, if not more so than we are, and a good portion will outive us.

You are absolutely correct - the US spends approx 15.7% of the GDP on healthcare.  Germany is next at 8% GDP; _everyone_ else is at or below 8%.  Our health quality hovers around #30-35 in the world, depending upon precisely which measures you specify.

There is one item on which we excel and are _#1_ - the ability to deliver the most advanced technlogy to the most patients.  However, this last item begs the question as to its real benefit given the stats mentioned above.

We also have the highest paid physicians and the highest overhead costs in the administration of our health care payment system (at least in terms of private insurance - approx 15-20% of all insurance costs go to overhead).  Of course, the single payer national system for the elderly and the disabled (Medicare) has a 1-2% overhead, as does Medicaid.

[LenexatoKCMO]

That poverty is nothing like what is in the US.  And those people are nowhere as near as unhealthy as our poor.  They live off traditional meals, our poor scarfs down McDonalds and fried chicken.

The general rule you need to follow is, everything is the US is more extreme.  Our obesity is worse, our drug use is worse, the severity of other substance abuse is worse (since you haven't lived in the US, you might not have heard of the wave of meth addiction in the past decade, but it's gotten extremely bad).

In Europe people drink more consistently, but with less severity.  I once saw a recently study (in a newspaper) about this.  It showed that while Europeans may drink just as much as us, Americans drink heavier and binge drink.

Having a glass of wine every night for dinner is much less unhealthy than getting totally loaded one night a week.

That has to be the most ill informed views of Europe I have ever seen.  Are you forming your impressions of Europe off of what you have seen on the travel channel?  Perhaps we can arrange a cultural exchange and send Joemoney to go live with a band of gypsies for a year. 

[Maitre D]

You are absolutely correct - the US spends approx 15.7% of the GDP on healthcare.  Germany is next at 8% GDP; _everyone_ else is at or below 8%.  Our health quality hovers around #30-35 in the world, depending upon precisely which measures you specify.

Man, I get so tired of the intellectual dishonesty.  If you strip out minorities (~30% of the population), those stats zoom to the top.  In education.  In health care.  In infant mortality.  In lfe expectancy.  In standard of living, and the big one:  income stats.

Now, we can argue HOW to get minorities up to that level.  I'm open for any & all suggestions (but not welfare).  Long-term, we NEED them to rise up because it will benefit us all.  But in order to intro universal health coverage, you're going to be telling the vast majority to suffer for the sake of the minority.  If you can sell that plan, you should work for Barnum & Bros!

We also have the highest paid physicians and the highest overhead costs in the administration of our health care payment system (at least in terms of private insurance - approx 15-20% of all insurance costs go to overhead).  Of course, the single payer national system for the elderly and the disabled (Medicare) has a 1-2% overhead, as does Medicaid.

"Doctors salary" as a category only makes up 17% of health expenses in the USA.  Not a whole lot, IMO.

[Maitre D]

It's not logically unsound.

First, the countries in Europe that do provide high quality, national health care are very "white bread."  The countries where most of the poor are located (Baltic, Turkey, other eastern European nations) do not have healthcare, or if they do, they have a 3rd world quality healthcare system.

Secondly, the poor in Europe are, for the most part, much different than the ones in America.  They are less unhealthy, and have less tendencies for unhealthy habits.

To put it simply, in America, we have more people who are a drain on society, than who are not, compared to Europe.  Don't look at just income though, the CULTURE of our poor, makes it far more difficult to help them, compared to Europe.  They really don't have many "dangerous ghettos" in most of Europe (yes they have dangerous places, but nothing like the US).  The poor in Europe make better choices for themselves.  Their poor are more "traditionally cultured," while America's poor have been corrupted by the white trash culture (for whites) and BET culture (for blacks).

Exactly.  The reason universal care has not happened, is b/c the majority is happy with the status quo.  Change can only occur when the majority isn't.

The only way universal health care would work in the US is if two things happened, 1.  the quality of healthcare would have to drop DRAMATICALLY, 2.  we would need to implement "mommy government" like policies to protect the people from themselves to lower the overall cost and improve public health (which defeats the purpose of America, a land of the free).  Universal health care is simply not meant for America.  That's not what this country is about.  It's supposed to be a utopia of freedom (from taxes, from intervention, and government babysitting), not a utopia of statistics (living standards, wealth equality, "social justice", etc).  And I put the term "social justice" in parenthesis because I hate the context in which it's used.  True social justice is me not having to pay for someone else's mistakes in life.

One of the most profound things I"ve ever read on this forum.

And to pittsburghparoyal, you're a wise man.

Well.....duh!    

[chrizow]

i think it boils down to your perspective on life and the world. 

if you can morally (not fiscally) justify unnecessary, preventable suffering and deaths in the world with a "hey, not my problem and i don't want to be taxed for it" attitude, so be it.  for those that have a "we're in this together and satisfying my own individual ego isn't worth facilitating global suffering" perspective, we see things differently.  the cults of individualism and nationalism will probably literally be the undoing of humankind.  so it goes. 

True social justice is me not having to pay for someone else's mistakes in life.

christ.  get over yourself.  what about the hapless children born to these persons?  (anticipated answer: if youre poor and/or diseased, don't have kids!).   :roll:

[Maitre D]

the cults of individualism and nationalism will probably literally be the undoing of humankind.  so it goes.

The "cults" of individualism is exactly what brought us out of the Dark Ages and into Democracy, Capitalism, and standards of living that people only dreamed about centuries ago.  No longer do we view ourselves as mindless drones....serfs...servants in one big happy family.  Anybody in America can be a success, or a failure. 

christ.  get over yourself.  what about the hapless children born to these persons?  (anticipated answer: if youre poor and/or diseased, don't have kids!).   :roll:

Good question.  What is your answer?  More gov't transfer programs?  Didn't we learn our lesson 1000x?

[KC0KEK]

if youre poor and/or diseased, don't have kids!).   :roll:

A few stories about people I know:

• Twenty-year-old has unprotected sex even though she has government-subsidized birth control. Baby dies a couple of hours after birth due to genetic disease. Taxpayers pay tens of thousands of dollars for her pre-natal care and hospital stay because she and the father can't afford it.
• As a result of this tragedy, her 23-year-old sister gets tested and finds that she has the same genetic disease as her sister and the baby. As a result, she's advised not to have kids unless she goes over the options with a doctor. Six months later, she gets pregnant anyway, and the baby is stillborn. Again, taxpayers pick up the tab for her medical care.
• Meanwhile, a younger cousin of these girls has two babies by two different guys, one of which she had a one night stand with while the other father was in prison for drugs. Now she and the kids are on welfare, partly because she refuses to work.
• If it matters, all of these girls are white, and the first two were raised in an affluent JoCo suburb.

All of these tragedies were preventable if the girls and boys had acted responsibly. The 23-year-old's behavior is even more inexcusable because after her sister's experience, she knew that there was a high chance of having a baby who would be mentally or physically disabled.

I know that there are no easy answers here. I also know that it's tragic that the last girl's children will grow up in an environment of drugs and dependency. But there is no way in hell that I'm going to pay more taxes so subsidize this kind of behavior, especially when they've been given every opportunity to avoid mistakes that will harm them and their children.

[chrizow]

in my opinion, whether we should as a society take care of children unfortunate enough to be produced by criminals/morons shouldn't really be up for debate.  you're not subsidizing crack babies by putting the crack baby in govt-funded ICUs.  you're taking care of a child, period.  so long as morons and crackheads have babies, someone should be there to take care of it.  maybe we should just throw them in the yangtze?

[KC0KEK]

What needs to be up for debate is how we avoid more children -- and taxpayers -- being put in this situation. We can't continue to sit on the sidelines and wring our hands.

Again, there are no easy answers, but continued inaction isn't an acceptable answer. Increasing sex education and access to birth control clearly isn't an answer, either, because both were widely available in the situations I described. Ultimately we have to find a way to force -- not encourage, but force -- people to be sexually responsible when they've clearly demonstrated that they're unwilling to be so on their own.

[Maitre D]

What needs to be up for debate is how we avoid more children -- and taxpayers -- being put in this situation. We can't continue to sit on the sidelines and wring our hands.

Again, there are no easy answers, but continued inaction isn't an acceptable answer. Increasing sex education and access to birth control clearly isn't an answer, either, because both were widely available in the situations I described. Ultimately we have to find a way to force -- not encourage, but force -- people to be sexually responsible when they've clearly demonstrated that they're unwilling to be so on their own.

Amen.  As I always say, the main cause of poverty is sexual irresponsibility.  And no gov't program can solve that, ever.

[chrizow]

i agree that irresponsibility, sexual and otherwise, causes a lot of problems in this country.  to me this does not change society's moral imperative to provide necessities and medical care to both these people as well as their offspring.  it's not one or the other.  on one hand we have to do what we can to educate people and encourage responsible behavior, but given the fact that there will always be folks who make poor decisions and there will always be people, e.g. children, who bear the brunt of those decisions not through any fault of their own, there need to be schemes in place to reduce suffering. 

[mean]

Or we could just kill everyone below a certain income level.

[Maitre D]

Or we could just kill everyone below a certain income level.

Don't laugh.  That's what they do in impoverished, 3rd world countries.  When resources run out, it's everyman-out-for-himself.  Good thing we have capitalism and hard working citizens to keep that engine running, and providing for (if not pacifying) the lazy.

[chrizow]

Good thing we have capitalism and hard working citizens to keep that engine running, and providing for (if not pacifying) the lazy.

good thing indeed!  of course our global brand of capitalism is concentrating more and more wealth among fewer people at the top leaving an enormous, growing underclass.  it seems like if you're going to perpetuate a system like that you may as well throw some (or a lot!) bones to those at the bottom! 

[nota]

if you can morally (not fiscally) justify unnecessary, preventable suffering and deaths in the world with a "hey, not my problem and i don't want to be taxed for it" attitude, so be it.  for those that have a "we're in this together and satisfying my own individual ego isn't worth facilitating global suffering" perspective, we see things differently.  the cults of individualism and nationalism will probably literally be the undoing of humankind.  so it goes. 

Just for fun (and nothing personal intended) how much more are you personally willing to pay to help the cause of "unnecessary, preventable suffering" whether in taxes or in contributions, etc?

[KC0KEK]

i agree that irresponsibility, sexual and otherwise, causes a lot of problems in this country.  to me this does not change society's moral imperative to provide necessities and medical care to both these people as well as their offspring.  it's not one or the other.  on one hand we have to do what we can to educate people and encourage responsible behavior, but given the fact that there will always be folks who make poor decisions and there will always be people, e.g. children, who bear the brunt of those decisions not through any fault of their own, there need to be schemes in place to reduce suffering. 

Right. But we need a way to reduce the suffering for the children while increasing the suffering for the people who produced them without thought for their welfare and well-being -- or any thought at all. It's ridiculous that we allow people to conceive children they can't or won't support over and over. Why should society have to foot the bill for their orgasms?

So in the case of the third girl I mentioned, one option to consider is offering sterilization in exchange for keeping her children and receiving government support. Harsh? Not really. For one, it's not forced sterilization. Anyone can avoid it by being sexually responsible. For another, harsh is allowing her to have more kids who grow up in an environment of drugs and dependency.

Again, these are tough situations with no easy answers. But we can't allow these situations to continue. 

[Joemoney]

That has to be the most ill informed views of Europe I have ever seen.  Are you forming your impressions of Europe off of what you have seen on the travel channel?  Perhaps we can arrange a cultural exchange and send Joemoney to go live with a band of gypsies for a year. 

I doubt those gypsies are gunning each other down in drivebys, eating greasy fastfood on a daily basis, and shooting up drugs daily.

[tat2kc]

well maybe we can have a morality screening prior to medical services. Smoker? Sorry, you caused your own diseases, we won't treat you. What about those who live with smokers? Since second hand smoke can cause disease, then does the decision to live with a smoker mean that you don't get medical care?

Using "morality" to determine who has access to quality medical care has to be one of the most morally repugnant arguements ever made on this site. Would not be surprised to find out that those taking this stance probably define themselves as good Christians.  Its repulsive.

[bahua]

Health care is not free.  Do you think the cost somehow lowers if you introduce a national health care system?  The cost is always coming out of someone's pocket.  How does anyone benefit if the government gives them healthcare, but they pass the cost right back onto them through increased taxation?

They do manage to lower costs in European nations with state-sponsored healthcare, but the result is doctors with a fraction of the competence of their American "for-profit" counterparts. I've observed that socialism turns all but the most devoted people into apathetic drones, regarding their work.