Universal Health Care in the US. Yea or Nea?

[DaN K. StAnLeY]

Seriously. How many times do we have to repeat that for the (tax) price you're already paying, citizens of most other developed first world countries all have access to a universal healthcare system.

Is all the spending allocated the same way? Is it possible that we spend way more than you on things like R&D and tech expenses related to medicine. I also wonder if peoples plastic surgeries are included in the total we spend on healthcare. I would say the US could buy and sell the UK with what we spend just on tummie tucks.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm also wondering why it is considered not moral to not want to pay for other peoples HC. People are dying all the time from no HC and I don't see the UK citizens flipping the bill for Africans. Is it only moral not to let people in your country die? The problems with uni-health won't be realized until we try it. You socials will probably get your way and then we will see. The big point that is escaping all of you people is that the subject of this post is "Yea or Nea" for uni-health. I say nea because it goes against my morals, and because I'm not ready to give up on a system that is being dragged down probably because all of the soc programs we have now. I'm really glad that uni-health works in tiny countries, but you can't prove our system would be better off like yours, can you?

It's like me saying that because Florida Gators won the ship in NCF, and lots of other teams have success using their offense, all NFL teams should use it too. Does that make sense?

With all due respect, no, it doesn't.

Now, your argument is that we shouldn't organise our healthcare so that all our own citizens are taken are of, because we don't/can't/won't fund universal care for third world countries as well? Sorry, this flailing around from ambulance fuel costs to everyone having to be treated by the "top man" to third world poverty does suggest to me that you don't really have a coherent argument.

I seem to remember a certain Jerome da Gnome, late of this parish, trying the "it's immoral to fund universal healthcare for your own citizens if you don't provide free healthcare to all of Africa" line too, not long before he got banned.

As was pointed out to him, shall be pointed out to you. Each country's citizens pay into a common fund, which they can then access as and when they need healthcare. Obviously, a system like that doesn't extend to providing free care to unlimited numbers of people who are not liable to pay into that common fund. The primary argument is not one of morality (though that does come into it, at a relatively local level), but one of practicality and efficiency.

"Tiny" countries? Let's have a look.

USA population 300 million
UK 60 million
France 60 million
Germany 80 million
Spain 40 million
Italy 60 million

Smaller, certainly, but tiny? I think not.

And consider. These are all EU countries. Together, they outnumber the USA, even before we add the rest of the 20-something states. I have, tucked away in my handbag, an EU health entitlement card. It's reciprocal. As an EU citizen, if I travel to any other EU country, I'm entitled to healthcare in that country on the same basis as citizens of that country. I can't travel for the purpose of accessing healthcare unless this is arranged in advance, but anything that crops up while I'm there, I'm covered.

We keep hearing about the autonomy of the States of the USA. If having such a huge country really is an enormous barrier to efficiency (and not just an unrivalled opportunity for economies of scale, as most people would probably see it), then break the problem down!

OK, let's have all the reasons why the small states couldn't cope in this scenario....

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I say nea because it goes against my morals, and because I'm not ready to give up on a system that is being dragged down probably because all of the soc programs we have now. I'm really glad that uni-health works in tiny countries, but you can't prove our system would be better off like yours, can you?

Pulling this bit out for special consideration.

Why do you say that a universal healthcare system goes against your morals? I really do have to have this explained to me. Especially in the context where there seems to be no objection to universal schooling, policing, firefighting and highway maintanance.

You'll also have to explain why your system "is being dragged down by all the soc programs we have now". I'm struggling to understand this, but are you trying to say that the availability of publicly-finded healthcare for a limited number of your fellow-citizens is compromising the quality of the private part of the system?

Of course nobody can PROVE how the USA would manage with any system at all until it tries. Nobody has a crystal ball. You can go right on claiming that the US would be bankrupted by all the petrol costs for the ambulances (even though Australia manages to cope at least to a basic level with an even more far-flung population), or that it's impossible because you'd inevitably have to give citizens of Anchorage the right to travel to Miami at public expense to have their carpal tunnels fixed (even though no country with a universal system gives its citizens an equivalent right), or any number of other knee-jerk objections.

We merely repeat that most of the other first-world democracies manage to operate some form of universal healthcare system for their citizens, at a pro-rata cost which is no more than the USA currently spends on Medicare and Medicaid, systems only a minority of its citizens have the right to access. We take note that the USA has a reputation for enterprise, invention and competence, and venture to suggest that it should not be beyond the wit of that section of mankind to sort out something better than it has at the moment.

As I said, if our criterion for trying out something different was that we had to have 100% proof that it would work, then we'd still be swinging from the trees.

Rolfe.

 

[volatile]

Aside: You can tell which side is losing an argument by comparing the speed at which each rapidly changes their objections, without ever actually addressing any rebuttals to their previous point. Anyone else notice that Dan hasn't actually responded to any arguments for a good few pages, and just keeps throwing up ever more ludicrous new ones every time the last one is swatted away with pesky logic and facts?

 

[Rolfe]

Is all the spending allocated the same way? Is it possible that we spend way more than you on things like R&D and tech expenses related to medicine. I also wonder if peoples plastic surgeries are included in the total we spend on healthcare. I would say the US could buy and sell the UK with what we spend just on tummie tucks.

Hi, Beerina! Sorry, not being facetious, but Beerina has some arcane argument that the USA is funding all the medical research on the globe, and that's why its total healthcare spend is so astronomical. He's never been able to substantiate that argumant that I've been aware of.

I'll let others compare the R&D contributions of the USA and countries with universal systems. But while the USA punches its considerable weight in that department, it's not obviously proportionately more than other developed first-world countries.

I don't see where elective plastic surgery really comes into the debate. That's private medicine in any country. The healthcare spend we've been talking about is what the USA spends on state-funded healthcare - Medicare and Medicaid. I don't imagine you can have a tummy-tuck on Medicaid! You certainly won't get it on the NHS.

Similarly with technical investigations. The costs we have been comparing are the cost of Medicare/Medicaid with that of e.g. the NHS. Are you saying that Medicaid patients get a more extensive range of diagnostic investigations than NHS patients do? Frankly I doubt that very much, and I'd like to see any evidence you have.

It really is quite simple. For the same (or even less) tax take, citizens of most other first-world countries all have access to the tax-funded healthcare system. You guys seem pretty much unique in taking the same amount in tax (proportionately), but then denying the majority of taxpayers access to the healthcare funded by these taxes.

Anything on top of that is beside the point. I can put my hand in my pocket and have a nose job or a tummy tuck or anything else I like too. This has no bearing on the argument.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Aside: You can tell which side is losing an argument by comparing the speed at which each rapidly changes their objections, without ever actually addressing any rebuttals to their previous point. Anyone else notice that Dan hasn't actually responded to any arguments for a good few pages, and just keeps throwing up ever more ludicrous new ones every time the last one is swatted away with pesky logic and facts?

Funnily enough, yes.

Now, your argument is that we shouldn't organise our healthcare so that all our own citizens are taken are of, because we don't/can't/won't fund universal care for third world countries as well? Sorry, this flailing around from ambulance fuel costs to everyone having to be treated by the "top man" to third world poverty does suggest to me that you don't really have a coherent argument.

I'm still waiting for him (or any other US citizen) to tell me what percentage of their January gross salary they actually got to take home, after tax. No answer. I'd honestly like to know, since so much of the anti-universal-coverage argument seems to veer back to how those of us who have such a system are all being taxed till our pips squeak.

And I'm now waiting to have it explained how he finds the very principle of a universal healthcare system immoral.

But he's probably going to change the subject again, and say that the USA can't have universal healthcare because that would inevitably mean that everyone who wanted a boob job would be entitled to have that for free, or some other equally preposterous straw man.

Rolfe.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Dangit, you just made me realize that my tax forms didn't make it to the new harddrive. Now I have to find the old one and make sure I save the records.

Found my wife's though. She kept 75%.

 

[Rolfe]

Because we give enough free [rule 10] away as it is. If we didn't accept those things, the socialist here wouldn't do anything at all.

Kidding aside, I'm not sure why people accept those things. Private schools are better. Private roads are better. I think we should stick with what works best.

I just noticed this one. Which I totally don't understand.

"If we didn't accept those things, the socialist here wouldn't do anything at all." That isn't even English. Translation?

"Private schools are better. Private roads are better. I think we should stick with what works best."

"Private shools are better." Maybe so. But how would your society be if provate schools were all that there were? Or if access to state-funded education was means-tested and only available to children of very low-income parents? Just think about that for about a minute and a half.

"Private roads are better." But again, how would your society be if there was no roadbuilding apart from private enterprise? How would the communications of the nation work?

And you didn't mention police or firefighting. Does private provision "work best" there too?

Where the private sector is allowed to cherry-pick, then its offerings are frequently superior. The private schools have the children of the well-to-do, motivated parents. The toll roads are on the popular bypass routes. So, on that basis you declare that this approach "works best".

Have you absolutely no imagination at all? Do really have no clue how little these cherry-picked situations relate to what would happen if public money was entirely withdrawn from the sector, or if access to the publicly-funded sector was strictly means-tested.

Rolfe.

 

[DaN K. StAnLeY]

And I'm now waiting to have it explained how he finds the very principle of a universal healthcare system immoral.

It is immoral if there is a better system that could save us more money, and save more lives. Or at least that was the argument against the US system earlier.

It's the best solution, proven in terms of efficacy and cost and it just happens to be the most morally sound too.

 

[DaN K. StAnLeY]

I don't imagine you can have a tummy-tuck on Medicaid! You certainly won't get it on the NHS.

Well, I'm not positive about tummy-tucks yet, but I know that medicare covers some of the expense for ED. Is ED more important than a breast reduction?

 

[Rolfe]

What's ED?

Rolfe.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Erectile dysfunction. And yes, for what should be blatantly obvious reasons.

 

[Rolfe]

It is immoral if there is a better system that could save us more money, and save more lives. Or at least that was the argument against the US system earlier.

It's the best solution, proven in terms of efficacy and cost and it just happens to be the most morally sound too.

Sorry, you've lost me again. Totally.

That latter comment was, I think, from Darat. He says, pretty clearly, that universal healthcare is the best solution in terms of efficacy and cost (I think he means efficiency rather than efficacy). He then adds, as a supplemental, that it is more morally sound. On the basis, I imagine, that access to medical treatment is not dependent on income or wealth.

How can you go from that, to your statement that you are morally opposed to universal healthcare? On the basis that you think there is another, entirely hypothetical system which might be superior?

Do tell.

Rolfe.

 

[quixotecoyote]

A list of all the arguments stanley has tossed up like clay pigeons

socialism is evil/I don't hate socialism
you cant prove it unless we try it and we can't try it unless you prove it
people have babies to get more food stamp money (no response to actual food stamp money calculator)
taxation is theft
gas for ambulances means we'd be too expensive
everyone would have to be transported to the one best provider
all sorts of points were made about why US is different (failure to name any of them)
failure to provide health care for the whole world is immoral if we provide health care for our country
R&D would stagnate if we had universal coverage (no evidence, no response to comparisons to other countries)
It's immoral because another (unnamed) system could do a better job.
It's unfair because the system would treat sexual dysfunction but not offer cosmetic surgery.

Did I miss any?

 

[Rolfe]

Erectile dysfunction. And yes, for what should be blatantly obvious reasons.

OK, yes, the NHS will cover some of the expenses of that.

It will also pay for breast reduction. By "boob job" I meant breast enhancement, which you'll find it a lot more difficult to get the NHS to cough up for.

Pure vanity plastic surgery will not be funded. However, cosmetic surgery will be funded if the patient is being significantly psychologically harmed by a defect in appearance. Which could include a spectacularly mis-shapen nose, or bat-ears, or enormous breasts. For obvious reasons, most of the patients for this sort of surgery are quite young. Cosmetic surgery for those disfigured by accident or disease is also funded.

Bariatric surgery is also funded, for patients meeting appropriate criteria. Funding for cochlear implants, which used to be restricted to one ear only, has recently been extended to cover binaural treatment.

I think its unlikely that there's anything Medicaid will spring for that the NHS won't.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Did I miss any?

Probably. It's blind idealism at its least attractive.

I'm very heartened to read the comments by a number of US posters who have given the question genuinely considered thought, and realise what they're missing. Now that I understand the issues, I know that if I were American, I'd be blazing mad that I was unable to access the healthcare my tax dollars had paid for, given that I was paying out just as much as citizens of countries which to offer universal healthcare.

I wonder how long it will take most people (who still seem to think that our universal system means that we pay much more in tax) to catch on?

Rolfe.

 

[NewtonTrino]

I just did my taxes last year. My overall tax rate including social security, income tax and medicare tax was about 20%.

I think the USA government spends it's money on the military instead of healthcare. Even so I think taxes here are a bit lower than in Europe (I know they are quite a bit lower than Canada as I've done calcs both ways on occasion for comparison purposes).

On a secondary note it costs about $850 a month for my company to get health insurance for a family of 4 who work here.

 

[Dragon-Master]

Pulling this bit out for special consideration.{?QUOTE]

I also had to respond to your comments on this too.

Why do you say that a universal healthcare system goes against your morals? I really do have to have this explained to me. Especially in the context where there seems to be no objection to universal schooling, policing, firefighting and highway maintanance.

Well for one firefighters are state owned or even city owned, but often times are volunteers who are the volunteers, nothing to do with socialism. Same with schools and police. Sometimes a corporation owns the firestation or police station. And I have been one to complain how the Federal government does have too much control in these areas.
As far as the highway mainanance, that is mostly state or county business area. So yes when a big government controls all aspects it is a little scary. Plus it is our government role to care for some infrastructure like roads and bridges.

You'll also have to explain why your system "is being dragged down by all the soc programs we have now". I'm struggling to understand this, but are you trying to say that the availability of publicly-finded healthcare for a limited number of your fellow-citizens is compromising the quality of the private part of the system?

Yes it is. Plus it is also draining on us tax payers. I believe a Australian poster stated some facts about his universal system. He stated that he pays about 1.5% of his taxes toward Medicad. If I my wife or I paid that much we would lose thousands of dollars more then what we even pay now. Even now we pay much more then any private insurance company with our Medicad system. Its sad that they will not allow us to chose. I think we should have a government assistance there for those that want it, but they are the ones that pay into it, not other taxpayers who do not want to.

Of course nobody can PROVE how the USA would manage with any system at all until it tries. Nobody has a crystal ball. You can go right on claiming that the US would be bankrupted by all the petrol costs for the ambulances (even though Australia manages to cope at least to a basic level with an even more far-flung population), or that it's impossible because you'd inevitably have to give citizens of Anchorage the right to travel to Miami at public expense to have their carpal tunnels fixed (even though no country with a universal system gives its citizens an equivalent right), or any number of other knee-jerk objections.

The knee jerk responses I get from the pro-universalists is "oh no they do not have coverage and t is not fair!!" kind of BS. Often times they do not realize that people OPT out of getting coverage because of their own decision, not because of costs.

We merely repeat that most of the other first-world democracies manage to operate some form of universal healthcare system for their citizens, at a pro-rata cost which is no more than the USA currently spends on Medicare and Medicaid, systems only a minority of its citizens have the right to access. We take note that the USA has a reputation for enterprise, invention and competence, and venture to suggest that it should not be beyond the wit of that section of mankind to sort out something better than it has at the moment.

Yet the cost of living in those other countrys are much higher then in the most expensive state in this nation. I have checked it out because of interest of living abroad.

 

[skepticalbeliever]

I say no. It isn't my responsibility to pay for health care for people who don't eat healthy foods. Look at the obesity epidemic in america that is caused by eating mcdonalds for breakfast lunch and dinner. I know many people who drink too much beer. I mean, this one girl needs to have 8 before she even feels drunk. Now if she gets liver problems, let her pay. It may sound cruel, but paying for irresponsible behavior only causes more of it.

I heard in a doctors office that a man who was a coke head was able to get benifits. This is a waste of tax payer $. I know another woman who collects disability payments, but she isn't disabled to the point where she can take care of 8 cats, drive and get her hair done every week. I think the welfare state model is a failed one and I hope it doesn't take hold in america

 

[Earthborn]

Often times they do not realize that people OPT out of getting coverage because of their own decision

Oh, we realise it. We just think it is wrong to allow people to opt out. It prevents effective sharing of the costs and the burden to pay increases for those who need healthcare the most. Not having coverage isn't the only thing that is unfair. What is also unfair is that some people get away with not caring for others.