Universal Health Care in the US. Yea or Nea?

Universal Health Care in America?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 68 61.8%

  • No!

    Votes: 24 21.8%

  • Don't care.

    Votes: 2 1.8%

  • I don't know enough either way to answer right now.

    Votes: 10 9.1%

  • Universal Shemp Care.

    Votes: 6 5.5%
  • Total voters
    110
  • Poll closed .
volatile said:
If you're not covered by Medicaid or insurance, you don't get treated. Or, you do get treated, but at the price of bankruptcy.

How many Americans forego treatment for minor illnesses because they can't afford the treatments? 16% of Americans are uninsured, so it's definitely more than "Zero". Ergo, their wait time is infinite, correct?
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It depends on what kind of treatment you are talking about. Are you sure they can't afford the treatment for a minor illness or they just realize they don't need to go to the doctor everytime they get sick?
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Lots - the emergency system is overrun precisely because uninsured people have no other choice than to wait for their condition to get so bad that they qualify for emergency treatment.
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According to the NYT article I linked above, it's at least 11 million people.
 
DaN K. StAnLeY said:
Did I condone a system like that? Could you show me where? I could have sworn I said our system needed fix'n.
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And yet you still haven't explained how. Go ahead whenever you're ready, though.

We've given you examples of "fixed" systems, but you reject them not on rational but on ideological grounds.
 
DaN K. StAnLeY said:
Saying "free" at all seems misleading.
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You pay more in taxes for healthcare for a fairly samll subset of your population than we do to pay for everyone. I think given the comparison, we can call it free. And the person recieving the healthcare need not have paid anything in taxes in order to be eligible.
 
volatile said:
18 weeks to get TREATED. That's not the time to wait to see a doctor. And that's for ALL conditions, including the most serious, all done free at the point of use for EVERYONE.

...snip...
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While you are correct your wording could be read to mean that serious treatment, such as for cancer will take 18 weeks. A better way of stating is that the target is 18 weeks to get TREATED even for the most minor of conditions, the most serious have much shorter target waiting times.

An anecdote but it does show that when the recent changes to the NHS work as they should do it is a fantastic service:

A few weeks ago I rang up my GP for an appointment over a problem with my finger, that was at 8.30 in the morning, my appointment was 9.40 that day, the Dr decided my finger needed an X-ray, typed it all in her computer and gave me a print off and the form required to arrange an appointment at any of 4 local hospitals. I got home just before 10 o'clock, rang the nearest hospital, the receptionist said "Could you be here by 10.40?". I could, had my X-ray done and the results were back with my Dr by the Friday. That was for a very minor problem.

Also the idea that waiting times are a unique problem to universal health care systems is of course ludicrous. DaN K. StAnLeY let me put it to you this way - what is the target treatment time for every single person in the USA to received the medical treatment they require? Or a variation what is the average waiting time for hospital treatment for every single person in the USA?
 
DaN K. StAnLeY said:
Saying "free" at all seems misleading.
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Why? It is free, essentially. No money changes hands for the consumer. If you don't like that usage of the word free, I don't quite see how you could ever use the word free in any context, because everything comes at a price.

You want your cereal box to say "50% extra free paid for by over-charging previous or future consumers for smaller boxes of cereal"?

Let's just stick with "free". We all know what we're talking about. No-one thinks that the healthcare fairies summon hospitals from pixie-land, so don't insult our intelligence or your own by pretending you think that's what we're suggesting.
 
The facts, as usual, aren't on your side. Give up the ideology and go with the facts. "Free market" healthcare cannot and does not work. The experiment has been done.
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I don't see why this article means that free market HC doesn't work. The way the system is currently set up isn't a "free market system" as has been mentioned in this thread. We are already somewhat breaking our backs on the Medicare system we have.
 
Let's just stick with "free". We all know what we're talking about.
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We'll since we all know what we are talking about, why not call it what it is instead of saying it is free. NOBODY in the UK gets "free" HC. It cost somebody, something.
 
And yet you still haven't explained how. Go ahead whenever you're ready, though.
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I've brought up ideas. It's up to you to read/watch things I've brought to the table.

We've given you examples of "fixed" systems, but you reject them not on rational but on ideological grounds.
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Okay, I'm here to have a discussion. If me asking questions and exchanging ideas here bothers you, then put me on ignore.
 
I should declare an interest, (well OK I admit it's just an excuse to name drop) , my other half is related to Bevan (Bevan was his mum's cousin). His mum was always rather embarrassed about it because of Bevan being a socialist and all that!
 
DaN K. StAnLeY said:
I've brought up ideas. It's up to you to read/watch things I've brought to the table.

Okay, I'm here to have a discussion. If me asking questions and exchanging ideas here bothers you, then put me on ignore.
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I doesn't bother me. I'm just interested in seeing your proposals. Where did you post them? Could you link the posts? I must have missed them.

You just seem ideologically wedded to a worse, more expensive, less effective system. That strikes me as an indication that perhaps your ideology needs tweaking. When the facts disagree with ideology, why stick with the ideology? It doesn't seem very rational to me. Almost religious.
 
I'm just little amazed at those that are concerned that somewhere along the line, someone gets something for nothing. That appears to be the primary concern of a lot of people here the, "It's not fair, I paid and he didn't" argument.

Surely that's how insurance works? You pay a premium and, if you never suddenly find yourself needing $2mil worth of medical treatment, then you're paying for less than you get. That lazy SOB with cancer gets treated out of your money. The layabout, taking more from the system than they put in. How dare they.

Surely the more people contributing to the pot (everyone in a universal healthcare system) the more that mitigates risk.

I just can't get too het up about someone getting something for free, I'm afraid. I really don't mind paying for the odd layabout to make sure that everyone gets treatment when they need it. Am I too altruistic? Naive?
 
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