Government run health care and government run schools

[Thunder]

Government run health care will be not-for-profit. That means lower costs. Private HMOs will have to lower their rediculous costs in order to keep up and stay competitive. Maybe even reduce CEO pay and yearly bonuses!!! God forbid!!

Free market wins.

 

[Rolfe]

This may well reduce the profits of private insurance companies as well, which is what I think the real obstacle is in Washington.

Well, I think so too. It's not so much about the profits as the size of the sector. The private health insurance industry in Britain is healthy and profitable, it's just not very big.

They're looking significant downsizing in the face, and they don't like it. In many ways I don't blame them. It would be better to confront this and deal with it than pretend the problem isn't there. in my opinion.

One way would be to examine the healthcare systems in countries that use the insurance companies to deliver the universal healthcare. I don't entirely know how that works, but it seems to work just fine. Another would be to accept that insurance company downsizing is a likely consequence and put in place structures to allow this to happen in a controlled way and without causing hardship.

Harness makers were doomed when the motor car was invented. But they didn't starve, they diversified. Tobacco companies should be forcibly downsized into oblivion and hell mend them. Somewhere in the middle is how to manage the health insurance industry in America. pretending it will all be hunky-dory isn't going to get it done though.

Rolfe.

 

[Ziggurat]

Ziggy, if there were no public schooling, do you think there would be greater choices for education?

There might not be better choice, but there would, without a doubt, be more choice.

And I'm not opposed to public education. I'm a product of public education, and I believe quite strongly that it should be universally available. Did you think otherwise?

 

[Rolfe]

Inevitability is irrelevant. In many places they are poor, and people want a choice. Without something like a voucher system, many don't have any realistic alternative. That's the reality of it.

And you still haven't taken on board what I've said at all. Unless you're implying that a government-funded healthcare system will be poor, so poor that people will want to reject it even though it's free at point of use, and pay for something else. And in that case we're just back to the piss-up in the brewery argument again.

I doesn't make what I said wrong: if you have to pay for government-run health care, your choices about health care are constrained. Regardless of the advantages that this might provide, my statement is still true. You're so hung up on our previous conversations that you can't actually evaluate what I actually said here.

And this is different from where you are at the moment how, exactly? You have to pay for government-funded healthcare at the moment. The difference is that in a universal system you get to access it. If you want.

I fail to see how that makes anyone worse off.

Rolfe.

 

[thaiboxerken]

There might not be better choice, but there would, without a doubt, be more choice.

How? Those who can't afford it simply won't be able to get it. How is that a choice at all?

 

[shawmutt]

I doesn't make what I said wrong: if you have to pay for government-run health care, your choices about health care are constrained. Regardless of the advantages that this might provide, my statement is still true. You're so hung up on our previous conversations that you can't actually evaluate what I actually said here.

This ignores the fact that many folks in the US are constrained with the current system. Have you seen the increase in copays lately? I had a hell of a time even finding a doctor in my pretty cushy health plan that was accepting new patients. Trying to get my son into a specialist for a serious eczema problem and resulting staph infection was damn near impossible. We had to hope someone canceled an appointment, and drop everything when the call came, or wait six months.

The US does provide universal health care, of a sorts. By law, emergency care has to be provided. This is a completely ass backwards way of doing things, is expensive and inefficient, and is choking the system. Universal health care allows folks to take preventative steps, and to visit less expensive health clinics, that avoid expensive emergency room visits.

 

[Rolfe]

You all keep on about "government-run" healthcare. Why should your government want to run healthcare?

It's about the government paying for healthcare.

Rolfe.

 

[shawmutt]

Well, and as mentioned before, there seems to be a false dichotomy when dealing with healthcare--employee based vs. "socialized". There are many ways to provide universal health care. Wikipedia has a decent article of different ways around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care

 

[Thunder]

You all keep on about "government-run" healthcare. Why should your government want to run healthcare?

It's about the government paying for healthcare.

Rolfe.

government run...government paid for...whatever.

its good for the American people. if the current system was soo good...there wouldnt be 30 million folks without health care.

 

[Ziggurat]

How? Those who can't afford it simply won't be able to get it. How is that a choice at all?

Those people don't have any choice now either. What they get now may be better than a no-government-education scenario, which is why I specifically made a distinction between quality and amount of choice, but they wouldn't have any less choice. Overall, choice would increase, not decrease. I never claimed that amount of choice was the only issue, and in fact indicated that it was not.

 

[Rolfe]

I still don't understand the constant idea that a government-funded system will or even might be so inadequate that even people on limited incomes would want to reject what they could have for free and arrange to pay privately.

Even the cheapest universal healthcare systems are able to provide sufficient primary care and emergency care to keep the vast majority of their populations perfectly satisfied with what they're getting. Even people with private health insurance still use the NHS for ordinary primary care stuff, and for all emergancy treatment. It's only if your doctor tells you that you need elective surgery that you call on the insurance plan - and that's not so you can have the surgery at all, but so you can have it in a nicer hospital, at a time of your own choosing, and usually a bit quicker. I had a sinus operation done that way, but if I hadn't had the insurance (or been repared to pay from my own funds) the same surgeon would have done the same operation on my anyway, just about five miles away and three months later.

Oh yes, and if you do need emergency treatment, and you wake up in an NHS hospital, that's when you can start asking for your private room in your private clinic. But the ambulance that rushed you for emergency surgery, and the emergency surgery will all be on the NHS. Since the NHS is unrivalled at providing this service, nobody even thinks of doing it differently.

Why would a US system be any worse? We are simply back at the piss-up in the brewery.

Rolfe.

 

[Ziggurat]

This ignores the fact that many folks in the US are constrained with the current system.

No, it does not ignore that at all. I know damned well that the current healthcare system has lots of constraints on our choices in it. That doesn't change anything I said, because I never claimed or suggested this was not the case.

 

[Ziggurat]

I fail to see how that makes anyone worse off.

I fail to see that I made such a claim anywhere within this thread.

 

[thaiboxerken]

It seems to me, Ziggy, that you're advocating choices only for those who can afford it. Screw the rest, they don't need no education.

 

[Rolfe]

Who, exactly, is going to be worse off in the proposed system you're arguing against, Ziggurat?

People on low incomes will have access to healthcare free at the point of need. They may not be able to afford extra bells and whistles on that, but they can't afford anything at the moment.

People on middle incomes will be able to access the healthcare system they're currently paying for, if they want to. And if they don't want to, or want extra provision, they can take out more insurance, or pay for it up-front. They have one more choice that they didn't have before, and no reduction in choice.

The rich will get what they want when they want it like they always do. They won't want to access the public healthcare system, probably, but that won't affect them in any material way. Indeed, it may advantage them further, because it is probable that they will have more exclusive access to expensive facilities that don't have to take any responsibility for looking after the Great Unwashed emergency cases.

So who actually loses out, and how and why?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I fail to see that I made such a claim anywhere within this thread.

OK, are you implying that you don't believe anyone will be worse off? Then what's your beef?

Notional, hypothetical ideas of "choice" that aren't actually real-world available options aren't a very good foundation to biuld a healthcare system on.

I seriously do not see what your objection is.

Rolfe.

 

[Ziggurat]

Who, exactly, is going to be worse off in the proposed system you're arguing against, Ziggurat?

I'm not trying to argue against any system in this thread, Rolfe. Which you would have noticed if you actually paid attention to what I wrote. I was arguing against parky's deeply flawed logic. But apparently because we've disagreed in the past on the topic of health care, and parky was arguing for what you believe in, the illogic of his argument was overlooked and my objections to that flawed logic became interpreted as an attack against what you believe in.

 

[Ziggurat]

It seems to me, Ziggy, that you're advocating choices only for those who can afford it.

No, thai. I'm not actually advocating anything in this thread except a recognition of the actual effects of different options. A recognition clearly absent in parky's post that I originally replied to.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't think what Parky said was deeply flawed at all. It was an analogy. And like all analogies it only goes so far. I've already pointed out areas in which it doesn't really hold.

Your argument seems to be going right back to, if I choose not to access the publicly-funded system ( of education, roads, police, libraries, foreign embassies or whatever) then I should not have to pay the proportion of my taxes that goes to fund these things.

That way lies the breakdown of society.

Rolfe.

 

[Ziggurat]

Your argument seems to be going right back to, if I choose not to access the publicly-funded system ( of education, roads, police, libraries, foreign embassies or whatever) then I should not have to pay the proportion of my taxes that goes to fund these things.

You are wrong. I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Recognizing that those costs constrain a person's choices is not the same as saying that everyone should be able to opt out of any such costs. Recognizing that many people in the US do not have a free choice between public and private education is not the same thing as calling for an end to public education. Can you really not understand the difference between recognition of a reality and expression of a preference?