Oh man, I was not going to respond to this post, but here goes.
Your naivete is almost charming. Almost. It would be charming coming from a teenager.
It's not "teenage naivete." I posted a link to Forbes, showing, not only how unimportant "greed" is to get things done properly, but how it can actually negatively CORRUPT! Greed, as a driving force, is only purported by Fox News viewers, because that is the Rupert Murdoch/Donald Trump/Koch Brother's philosophy.
I am telling you, most people are happy if they just simply make a decent living, and they are able to do so under their own merits of hard work and/or intelligence.
The company and the article are completely irrelevant. And you have no reason to call their employees "snake oil salesmen."
Yes, I do. And that wasn't even the point to begin with. I was showing how the selling of drugs is still profitable in a UK-style single-payor system.The USA does NOT need to be the world's "drug subsidizer." Drug companies would do just fine, albeit with slightly reduced profits, if the USA, as a nation, can get the 300,000,000 people to collectively negotiate prices.
A NASA-style funding for drugs would be ideal. I personally do not give a **** about the drug companies and their profit, and I have no reason to give a **** about that.
The US does not have anything close to a free-market system in health care. It is heavily distorted by government regulation, government tax policy, and government health care programs (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid). When you consume health care services, even something as mundane and predictable as an annual checkup, you do not pay the cost of that directly. So why should you care about getting the best price, or only going when you need to?
Right, because private insurance companies do not exist.
A "free-market" is not the same as a "capitalist market."
I am arguing in favor of a socialist system for healthcare, as my health is not a good for someone else to profit off of. My personal rights to have my health care be purely between me and my doctor, should trump a corporate sleazeballs rights to profit off of it, or god-forbid, make decisions on whether this operation I can have as opposed to that, because it is cheaper. No, the decision of which operation, or whether I should have an operation, should be based on what is best for MY BODY! Not based on someone else's wallet!
I'm not saying that Europeans should want to help out the US. I'm saying that they should understand that they're enjoying a free ride at the US's expense. At least if they want to reduce the probability that it will end.
I don't think Europeans care whether the US is actually "helping them out" or not. In fact, I don't think that is even true, as drug companies can still profit in European nations. And they can still profit in the US if single-payor were passed. It's that the profits will not be as steep, because like the European nations, we would be collectively bargaining for better prices.
Well, it isn't. It's not an essential part of life, like food and water and shelter. Human civilization survived and developed without meaningful health care for the last 15,000 years. Health care really only had a material impact on human longevity and well-being beginning about 150 years ago. In any case, health care consumption accounts for 16% of the national economy. Very little of that has to do with life and death stuff.
People also survived without superhighways. In a modern economy, where you need a healthy workforce, health care IS an essential commodity. Just like road-building. In any case, women frequently died in childbirth in centuries and millennia past. It is not quite so common any more. So tell this to a spouse whose wife has a complicated, potentially deadly, pregnancy but whose life was saved because of modern healthcare. Or tell that to a breast cancer survivor. Or tell that to someone with severe asthma.
Exactly. That's precisely what I think, and I think there will be a tremendous efficiency gain if we go that route.
You are exactly wrong, and why you're disgusting Tea Party notions will lose in '16. People are disgusted with it. Human health and human bodies are NOT meant to be traded and bartered for like a bunch of baseball cards. A corporate executive from NYC does NOT have the right to interfere with health-related decisions between me and my doctor. In fact, the concept of confidentiality goes way back to Hippocrates. And in the USA, we have patient's rights. Corporate executive do NOT have the right to go poking around in our health files, nor even to ask about our health care, yet we have given up those rights just so they can make enormous profits.
**** em.
Your doctor needs to be paid for his time and his effort. If he isn't paid, then he is a slave. If he is paid by some entity other than you, then your health is no longer strictly between you and your doctor.
Of course he needs to be paid for his time and effort.
Under the old system, before the ACA, insurance companies made decisions on whether something was covered or not, based on "pre-exisiting conditions." Not only is this a DIRECT interference of important decision-making, but outright violates patient confidentiality!
If the government were to fund healthcare under a single-payor system, no questions need be asked in the decision-making process between you and your doctor. The doctor just simply says: "This is operation, or that drug is necessary," and the money is provided. Sure, a government agent somewhere to see what operation is necessary for what name. But said government agent cannot make any decisions to deny or "allow" the operation to proceed. It's just simply for record-keeping purposes.
You see sunmaster's posts? How he DOGGEDLY wants a free-market approach to healthcare? I am not going to respond to his last post, as it's clear he's a pure capitalist who has not learned from history. That's the ******** we have to deal with here in the USA. Of course, the UK has it's people too. But not nearly as large of a voting bloc% as the USA.
