Thread: Health Care in the USA

Originally Posted by gugi

it's a good idealistic goal, but it doesn't work in practice. communism is a nice idea too but when put to a practical experiment it failed.

as you well know the current american society is quite different from what franklin et. al. wrote in. whether i'm pessimistic or optimistic depends largely on your point of view, i guess. for example if you think the current politicians are more corrupt than the ones from the times of the founding fathers i think you've been reading propaganda instead of history.

so back to my point, people lack discipline therefore the system that you propose does not work in practice even if it looks good on paper. the disciplined ones get well off enough that they don't worry about health insurance. it's a positive feedback, those who wold benefit from such system are 'disadvantaged' enough to not be able to take advantage of it and those who has the advantage to benefit don't really need it.

you can blame any administration or policy you like, but at the end of the day if americans had the culture of not living beyond their means there would not have been a crisis. it's a free country and everybody makes their own decisions. it's not the government who forces people to make bad decisions, at best they may have mislead them into those, but that's about it. not so smart people thought that they are actually making good decisions, smart people thought that they would be able to jump off the train before the wreckage (some financial institutions actually pulled it off and had negligble amount of bad assets when SHTF).

i already posted earlier that this is not an academic problem, there is plenty of experimental evidence what various systems cost and what results they produce.
of course, there will be always the ideologues who insist that the current system is better, even though other systems have demonstrated better results and efficiency.

Yes, it was the government that forced the banks to make bad decisions, and bad loans.

Originally Posted by honedright

Yes, it was the government that forced the banks to make bad decisions, and bad loans.

i hope you're a banker, or friends with some.
and who forced the other side who took the bad loans? each contract takes two willing parties... i think that's still the case in US.

Originally Posted by gugi

i hope you're a banker, or friends with some.
and who forced the other side who took the bad loans? each contract takes two willing parties... i think that's still the case in US.

Read this and decide for yourself: Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by honedright

Read this and decide for yourself: Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read that and the only thing that connects the CRA to the banking crisis was how it created lax regulations. Isn't that what you want? Less government control?

The article also points out that most of the "predatory lending" was done by mortgage brokers not affiliated with the CRA.

Maybe I missed something, please quote the parts that support your opinion. The part about "some economists feel..." doesn't count. A few could mean two people. Usually it means the majority do not feel that way.


edit:
Just wondering, but what does everyone who is against any form of national healthcare/insurance think about the existing state sponsored health care programs? Ie, Medicare and state sponsored medicaid.

Originally Posted by honedright

Read this and decide for yourself: Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I did and I did not see any 'forcing'. The numbers in the article don't really support your claim either (I usually like to check such things). In fact as far as I can tell the banks that had to be bailed out to save the economy had nothing to do with the CRA.

Of course, this is getting a bit off topic, so could you give us any evidence that your proposition can work, something with rough estimates of numbers would be great.
As far as I understand you are saying that given the chance the market will make underinsured and uninsured people to become disciplined. Any estimates of timescales, presumably extrapolated from existing data, or perhaps an analogous system which has worked on comparably large scale would be along the lines of supporting evidence I'm looking for.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

On the non-U.S. post you started initially we're seeing a lot of "I've never really had to use it but for minor things and I have no complaints" which makes sense to me since our membership, although diverse in age is still a bit on the younger side relatively speaking.

Colleagues of mine lived in the hospital for a year because their toddler needed surgery 33 times in 1 year. It only cost them time and stress

Originally Posted by ChrisL

My biggest concern with government run health care is this: What exactly would the government decide would be reasonable and necessary care vs. what would be unnecessary and disallowed care in regard to the very sick and the elderly? How realistic could mandated Euthanasia be? What are some other "slippery slope" things that could affect the very lives of U.S. citizens if the government made decisions related to health? If you've got no other options that what the government tells you you can or can't have in regard to healthcare then you darn well better pray that your government is a loving, caring, empathetic, responsible body with the interest of each and every citizen within its borders in mind first and foremost. Oh, and I'll leave it to someone else to put about 10 of the LMAO smiley's after the underlined at the very thought.

Chris L

You misunderstand. Our government PAYS for the healthcare. They don't have any say in what gets treated or whether you need an MRI or not. that is up to you and the doctors, dentist, and whomever is treating you for whatever.

You know something I don't bruno how does the US Government pay for health care? Are you talking about medicare and medicaid? I can understand that. My healthcare company is non-profit but they are making a tone of money off me each month.

I mean my government (Belgium) pays for healthcare. Other than that they are not involved in the patient - doctor relationship. I mentioned it because it addresses Chris' concerns about governmental decisions about what gets treated.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You misunderstand. Our government PAYS for the healthcare. They don't have any say in what gets treated or whether you need an MRI or not. that is up to you and the doctors, dentist, and whomever is treating you for whatever.

Surely there is some line the government draws for things they will not pay for - or will they actually pay for anything you and any other doctor will agree to do?

Originally Posted by Leighton

edit:
Just wondering, but what does everyone who is against any form of national healthcare/insurance think about the existing state sponsored health care programs? Ie, Medicare and state sponsored medicaid.

I saw William F Buckley on Charlie Rose once and they were talking about personal responsibility versus government assistance. CR said,"Surely you believe in the social security system?" Buckley got a sad look on his face and shook his head saying,"No I don't."

The pull your self up by your own bootstraps of the extremist conservative mindset looks upon any government assistance of their citizens beyond national defense as communism. The extreme right wing thinks liberals are traitors, these ultra conservatives would totally dismantle all of the gov sponsored social programs of the new deal and the great society. Fortunately they are a minority within the right but they do have influence and they make themselves heard.