Stossel Solves the Health Crisis with Capitalism

[ponderingturtle]

Is there any point at which a universal health care system becomes impossible to pay for? By this I mean regarding an ageing population. The longer people live the more medical treatments they are going to need. And with fewer younger people would there be tipping point where there just aren't enough people paying into the system to support the population? I mean isn't this the reason why medicare is trillions in debt?

If healthcare for some becomes impossible to pay for the only solution is to let them die.

Now given how much massivilyt less many countries spend per capita for objectively better health care than the US, it does not seem to be happening.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Would you really prefer a system where the patient could just tell the doctors to go to hell at this point and insist on getting surgery with no lifestyle alteration?

Rolfe.

When you get down to it Rolfe that is the system we have, even if we ignore the advice, don't lose a pound of weight and carry on smoking 60 a day we are still entitled to the best care possible. It just might be in those circumstances that the best care for an obese heavy smoker is palliative rather than curative.

 

[Rolfe]

And there is an easy answer, go all victorian and throw people who can't pay out on the street to die. Look at the case of that kid with the lip bitten off by the dog. They forced doctors to treat him with out pay stealing from them, and removed his future career in begging.

But people dying in the steets is good, it means that they are not running up health care costs.

I sympathise with your sentiments. However, it's outbursts like that have led Dan to call us "[rule 10]-holes". I don't think it's constructive.

Dan has repeatedly returned to the position that he does not want to contribute to the cost of anybody else's healthcare. This seems, however, to be an emotional position, not a rational one. He has indicated that he'd consider voluntary charitable contributions, if he was assured that the recipients were "deserving" - it's the concept of compulsion that he has particular problems with, and the concept of people he regards as undeserving "getting something for nothing".

Yes, we've pointed out the severe practical problems in delivering healthcare to the disadvantaged if the system is entirely funded by voluntary charitable donations. We've pointed out the inherent unfairness, where the charitable are left to shoulder the entire burden, and the selfish misers get to opt out of contributing.

We've also pointed out the difficulty of identifying the "deserving", and the tendency of such efforts to exclude the genuinely needy who don't know how to work the system, while including the wise guys who know how to do that. We've pointed out the asymmetry of funding that can result, with attractive charities receiving proportionately more funding, and the unattractive ones like geriatric mental health being left with nothing.

We've even tried to ascertain whether Dan really wants healthcare to be withheld from the improvident. If someone has indulged in a bad diet, then gets diabetes - does he want to deny them insulin because their plight may be seen as self-inflicted? Remember, without insulin, they will die. Is this punishment really proportionate to the crime?

He hasn't actually addressed any of that. If faced with accusations that the system he seems to be arguing for will leave people to die in the streets, he just gets offended. He doesn't want that to happen. Truly, he doesn't.

But still, he doesn't want to contribute to anybody else's healthcare costs. In particular he doesn't want to be compelled to do that. Especially if they're undeserving layabouts.

But he really, genuinely doesn't want people to be left to die in the streets.

These are mutually exclusive positions. But yelling at him isn't going to help.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

When you get down to it Rolfe that is the system we have, even if we ignore the advice, don't lose a pound of weight and carry on smoking 60 a day we are still entitled to the best care possible. It just might be in those circumstances that the best care for an obese heavy smoker is palliative rather than curative.

I just wonder if Tsukasa Buddha wants a system where the obese heavy smoker can just demand the surgery even though it isn't in his best interests under the circumstances.

I'm struggling to imagine any actual real-world scenario of "excessive regulation of personal lifestyles as they pertain to health" that any democratic government could get away with.

Again, I smell a knee-jerk "they're trying to take away our freeeeeeedoms!" response which hasn't thought through the probability or even possibility that anything like that could actually happen.

Rolfe.

 

[Francesca R]

For all the good, beneficial things about UHC there must be some bad stuff about it that hasn't been thought of properly. (And don't forget that it is tyranny)

For all the bad, non-beneficial things about voluntary HC, there must be some good stuff about it that hasn't been thought of properly. (And don't forget it is freedom)

Therefore let's all support voluntary HC while we work on those, and/or don't bother and just play the tyranny versus freedom card instead.

'S what the position of some on the thread looks like to me quite a lot.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't see people dying in the streets here yet, ....

I meant to highlight this.

Why not? Why is Dan not seeing people dying in the streets?

Medicaid and Medicare, that's why. The "socialised" parts of the US health system. The bit that compels Dan to give his money to contribute to the healthcare of others. The bit that gives people "something for nothing". Even undeserving people.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

For all the good, beneficial things about UHC there must be some bad stuff about it that hasn't been thought of properly. (And don't forget that it is tyranny)

For all the bad, non-beneficial things about voluntary HC, there must be some good stuff about it that hasn't been thought of properly. (And don't forget it is freedom)

Therefore let's all support voluntary HC while we work on those, and/or don't bother and just play the tyranny versus freedom card instead.

'S what the position of some on the thread looks like to me quite a lot.

There really is a huge gulf of outlook here. We get a lot of stuff from the Americans about not giving people something for nothing, not supporting freeloaders, working harder to pay your own way and so on. I'm sure there are people in Britain with similar views but they keep relatively quiet because they know this is not the majority accepted position.

I remember a case a few years ago, of a woman who was HIV positive who came from an impoverished African country and managed to get to England as an illegal immigrant. Because she was there, and not just on holiday either, she was immediately entitled to NHS treatment. She was given antiretroviral drugs.

She found somewhere to stay and settled into the community while she went through the legal process of getting entitlement to remain. Refugee status or something like that. But she failed. The court decided to order that she be sent back to the impoverished African country. Where antiretroviral drugs are very expensive, and she would not be treated.

You might expect public outrage at this to take a particular form. How dare this freeloading foreigner presume to show up here as a parasite on our health service? Send her back! But no. If anyone thought that, they kept fairly quiet about it. The actual public campaign was to allow the woman to stay, and to continue to receive treatment on compassionate grounds.

Suggestions that NHS treatment (to which everyone who lives here is entitled, irrespective of nationality or tax records or even length of residence) should be withheld from illegal immigrants have been vociferously resisted. On the grounds that we can spare a little bit extra, and that seeing these people dying in the streets would be unpleasant.

I wonder how this debate would play out in America?

Rolfe.

 

[Francesca R]

You might expect public outrage at this to take a particular form. How dare this freeloading foreigner presume to show up here as a parasite on our health service? Send her back! But no. If anyone thought that, they kept fairly quiet about it. The actual public campaign was to allow the woman to stay, and to continue to receive treatment on compassionate grounds.

I expect that a separate issue overwhelmed the free-riding one, namely the popular view that intellectual property protection in respect of medicine is a shocking contravention of public interest. That is a whole nuther debate.

 

[Rolfe]

I think what did it was that she was here, and living in the community, and had therefore become "us" rather than "them". In Britain, "us" as regards healthcare seems to encompass everyone more or less breathing the same air. Whereas in America being poor or feckless or improvident seems to exclude people into the "them" category.

There's probably a sociology thesis in it somewhere.

Rolfe.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I sympathise with your sentiments. However, it's outbursts like that have led Dan to call us "[rule 10]-holes". I don't think it's constructive.

If you want capitalism you can't have people being forced to provide goods and services to people who can not afford to pay for them. It is just that simple.

He needs to admit that.

Dan has repeatedly returned to the position that he does not want to contribute to the cost of anybody else's healthcare.

It is more it is that people shouldn't be forced to contribute to someones health care. That includes doctors and hospitals who are forced to treat someone if they can't pay just because they are dying.

He needs to accept the consequences of his position.

Yes, we've pointed out the severe practical problems in delivering healthcare to the disadvantaged if the system is entirely funded by voluntary charitable donations. We've pointed out the inherent unfairness, where the charitable are left to shoulder the entire burden, and the selfish misers get to opt out of contributing.

Of course why should I donate a tiny portion of someones medical bills who I don't know and will never meet, I have health insurance and would like to have a big screen HDTV, and not spend the money on a hospital bed for some guy for one night.

He hasn't actually addressed any of that. If faced with accusations that the system he seems to be arguing for will leave people to die in the streets, he just gets offended. He doesn't want that to happen. Truly, he doesn't.

So he need to look at what the "Stossel Solution" is.

But he really, genuinely doesn't want people to be left to die in the streets.

These are mutually exclusive positions. But yelling at him isn't going to help.

Rolfe.

Maybe, but it seems like nothing will get him to face the real effects of his postions.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I meant to highlight this.

Why not? Why is Dan not seeing people dying in the streets?

Medicaid and Medicare, that's why. The "socialised" parts of the US health system. The bit that compels Dan to give his money to contribute to the healthcare of others. The bit that gives people "something for nothing". Even undeserving people.

Rolfe.

There is also the anti capitalistic laws that force hospitals and doctors to treat the dying regardless of their ability to pay. These laws fly in the face of a capitalistic system.

If hospitals could refuse care for those who can not pay, just like Dan wants to be able to do, then you would see them dying in the streets.

 

[ponderingturtle]

There really is a huge gulf of outlook here. We get a lot of stuff from the Americans about not giving people something for nothing, not supporting freeloaders, working harder to pay your own way and so on. I'm sure there are people in Britain with similar views but they keep relatively quiet because they know this is not the majority accepted position.

I remember a case a few years ago, of a woman who was HIV positive who came from an impoverished African country and managed to get to England as an illegal immigrant. Because she was there, and not just on holiday either, she was immediately entitled to NHS treatment. She was given antiretroviral drugs.

She found somewhere to stay and settled into the community while she went through the legal process of getting entitlement to remain. Refugee status or something like that. But she failed. The court decided to order that she be sent back to the impoverished African country. Where antiretroviral drugs are very expensive, and she would not be treated.

You might expect public outrage at this to take a particular form. How dare this freeloading foreigner presume to show up here as a parasite on our health service? Send her back! But no. If anyone thought that, they kept fairly quiet about it. The actual public campaign was to allow the woman to stay, and to continue to receive treatment on compassionate grounds.

Suggestions that NHS treatment (to which everyone who lives here is entitled, irrespective of nationality or tax records or even length of residence) should be withheld from illegal immigrants have been vociferously resisted. On the grounds that we can spare a little bit extra, and that seeing these people dying in the streets would be unpleasant.

I wonder how this debate would play out in America?

Rolfe.

See this just shows that brits have more compassion in general.

 

[themusicteacher]

Medicine, by virtue of the Hippocratic Oath, is not a capitalistic system. This is the rub and the very crux of the issue. You have people like Stossel saying that free markets will solve and manage absolutely everything and if people can't pay then, quite frankly, they can go bugger themselves 'cause it's their own gosh-darn fault for being moral and economic failures and they should have thought about the consequences and costs of being alive before they were born and that if we provide healthcare for everyone we'll all be a bunch of Socialists and if we're going to do that we might as well just tear up the Constitution (oops, Bush already did that) because democracy and capitalism are interchangeable terms (except for China), hand in our guns and swear eternal allegiance to those awful, horrible, freedom-hating liberal fascist's all because we are being forced us to pay for others to get healthcare (a system we already have in insurance, anyhow) which is, BTW, a system we would have access to as well, would have lower costs (lowering the amount we pay as individuals) and give better overall results while, at the same time, not prevent us from seeking private medical care for elective or extra care out of our own pockets!

I mean, come on, people, it's a slippery slope! We can't do anything that we could call "social" (a favorite scare tactic of the right) even it makes sense, costs less and provides better results. Of course, like most issues the "be very afraid of anything social" crowd screeches about from the mountaintops, they have no alternative solutions (other than complain, fearmonger and do nothing) other than, "Um, well, yeah, the markets will work it all out." In the meantime, people DO indeed languish and/or die that don't have to in ER's everyday (which has a very high cost to...everyone!) because they couldn't get basic healthcare. But, I suppose you can't make the world's most expensive and worst tasting omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? Stossel is a douche.

 

[Policenaut]

This was a one off incident I'm guessing. It would probably go over well in the US if marketed correctly like CNN did with the kid from Iraq that was set on fire. On the other hand we already have 10-15 million illegals who already get treatment in hospitals, don't pay anything and in some cases bankrupt said hospitals.

As to my previous posts (I admit I haven't read the rest of this thread so maybe this has been talked about already) it seems that we have to get to the reason why Medicare is so expensive compared to other systems in the world. I've read many different reasons over the years but they were opinions full of "maybe" and "possibly" and "if this is true, then...". If someone knows then great, we can fix it. But if it's an "unknown" factor then we need to have some sort of commission to get to the bottom of it. Like I said before Medicare is somewhere in the tens of trillions in debt and set to rise. This does not bode well for the future of UHC in the US if it's based off Medicare.

 

[3point14]

This was a one off incident I'm guessing. It would probably go over well in the US if marketed correctly like CNN did with the kid from Iraq that was set on fire. On the other hand we already have 10-15 million illegals who already get treatment in hospitals, don't pay anything and in some cases bankrupt said hospitals.

As to my previous posts (I admit I haven't read the rest of this thread so maybe this has been talked about already) it seems that we have to get to the reason why Medicare is so expensive compared to other systems in the world. I've read many different reasons over the years but they were opinions full of "maybe" and "possibly" and "if this is true, then...". If someone knows then great, we can fix it. But if it's an "unknown" factor then we need to have some sort of commission to get to the bottom of it. Like I said before Medicare is somewhere in the tens of trillions in debt and set to rise. This does not bode well for the future of UHC in the US if it's based off Medicare.

Feel free to ignore me because I'm speculating, but could it be that by the time people become eligible for medicare (at 65?) then an ailment that would have cost $x to treat when it became apparent now costs 20 X $x because it's been festering for five years?

 

[Francesca R]

it seems that we have to get to the reason why Medicare is so expensive compared to other systems in the world. [ . . . ] But if it's an "unknown" factor then we need to have some sort of commission to get to the bottom of it.

Not sure why Rome's burning . . . let's have a poke around and find out . . . if we just put the fire out it might start again.

 

[Lonewulf]

Not sure why Rome's burning . . . let's have a poke around and find out . . . if we just put the fire out it might start again.

Owch. Snarky, but so true.

 

[Policenaut]

That was brought up a few posts ago. I don't know if it's true or not. It seems like that could be a factor. Personally I've never known or heard of anyone who did such a thing but I'm sure it happens. But like I said if we don't know exactly why (I'm quite sure there isn't just one reason) the cost is so high then there should be a commission to look into it. It would at least be more useful than talking about steroids in baseball.

 

[Francesca R]

Medicine, by virtue of the Hippocratic Oath, is not a capitalistic system. This is the rub and the very crux of the issue. [ . . . ]

That was a fun post, but this part is ideology, also.

Plumbing, by virtue of the Plumber's Oath (little known thing whereby they pledge to only fix leaking pipes) is not a capitalistic system either.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

This was a one off incident I'm guessing. It would probably go over well in the US if marketed correctly like CNN did with the kid from Iraq that was set on fire. On the other hand we already have 10-15 million illegals who already get treatment in hospitals, don't pay anything and in some cases bankrupt said hospitals.

<snip>

So what do the 10-15 million illegals do to get money for food and shelter?

Are they starving to death on the streets?