Universal Healthcare
Kevin has an informative post about universal healthcare and the US. I, as though you couldn’t guess, oppose universal healthcare. One reason is that I think our system brings in the best doctors (who are motivated more by money than in Canada). People come to the US for their surgery, I don’t know of anyone who goes to Canada for a specialist, unless it’s for a procedure the FDA hasn’t approved yet.
Kevin writes:
And those tiny little tax cuts the vast majority of Americans got? Never mind the increase in local propoerty taxes and sales taxes, they will probably be eaten up by an increase in what you pay for your insurance
Well, those tiny tax cut aren’t related in any way to insurance costs. They don’t affect each other. Kevin also says our system doesn’t work. We don’t have a system, we have a market, unless it’s for the poor or the elderly.
He also states that a universal system would better than what we have now. My question is Better for who? I can understand the desire to provide healthcare to those who can’t afford insurance but I am satisfied with my insurance coverage that I pay for out of my pocket. I have Canadian friends and I would be unwilling to trade my current coverage for theirs.
Also, universal healthcare would put a lot of people out of work.
I don’t think universal healthcare is the answer. I think healthcare benefits provided to those who can’t afford them is the answer. We already have that it’s just expensive to taxpayers, riddled with fraud, and apparently not enough folks can access it.
He points out that Medicare and Medicaid are well run, effective programs. I think that’s not the case. I think that Medicare/aid are good at not increasing costs but I tend to doubt any government agency runs well or effectively.
Something needs to be done but I don’t think universal healthcare is the answer.
September 9th, 2003 at 2:50 pm
“We have a system that wastes anywhere from 15-30% of its money on paper pushing”
And a government program will fix this how?
There’s no easy answer to having health care that’s of high quality, offers speedy access to care, and provides widespread, affordable coverage. I definitely do not trust the government to provide it, though. The Feds run Veteran’s Administration hospitals, and I’ve never heard particularly good things about them.
Some things that would move us in the right direction:
* Tort reform to reduce civil judgements for pain and suffering.
* Stop making the U.S. the financier of global pharmacy research. Many countries (including France and Canada) limit how much drug companies can charge. Other countries simply can’t afford medicine at any price. The result is that U.S. consumers bankroll pharmaceutical development for the entire world.
September 9th, 2003 at 5:43 pm
Just a couple of points. The tax cut remark was meant to show that health costs eat away at your earning power.
“Better for who?” For most Americans, I believe. Most people are not happy with the lack of choice and the amount of obstruction their insurance providers throw in their way. it would also reduce the money you pay in helath costs, as the uninsured drive up health costs for everyone.
“Also, universal healthcare would put a lot of people out of work. ”
I assume you are talking about people who work for insurance compnaies – casue the links in the article point out that the idea that small businees would be driven to cut people in such a system doesn’t pan out. At anyrate, yeah, that does bother me. But I think that the improvement in the economy form a universal health care sytem would more than offset those losses. But thats where being a liberal helps – I am all for fully funding job training programs 🙂
I understand your reluctance in this issue, I really do. I wasn’t a proponent of universal health care until recently – I even opposed the Clinton health plan. Its just that I don’t see any benefit in our current system, and I don’t see things even stablaizing.
Les
Don’t foget the rest of the sentance “and profits.” Profits were supposed to be the price we paid for keeping costs down, etc. That isn’t happeneing, so right now, profits are a waste of resources. And Medicare/caid are both more efficient at processing paper work then the private insurance industries.
September 9th, 2003 at 7:20 pm
My reluctance comes from the fact i don’t want the same folks who spend $900 on a toilet seat deciding which doctor i need to see.
September 9th, 2003 at 7:20 pm
And anyone sane opposed the clinton plan. She was asked what it did once and couldn’t answer.
September 9th, 2003 at 11:33 pm
My son was high on universal healthcare because he went to Brasil where his wife got instant treatment. I pointed out three things:
1) His wife got instant treatment by good doctors because her brother is director of a hospital. If you take the free market out of things there is no reason for people to excel.
2) I asked him to name one thing that has benefited from the government running it, that can be compared to a company (e.g., USPS vs. FedEx, airport security).
3) I asked him to look up the tax rates in Brasil.
He now agrees with me. Keep the government out of it.
September 10th, 2003 at 12:52 pm
I have a friend that went to India to get some surgery done because he was uninsured here. The hospital that he went to was actually quite nice and he saved a lot of money and was operated on by a British-trained surgeon. This is the reality…most uninsured folks don’t have the money to get the best treatment..most insured people don’t have the money to demand the best if it wasn’t for their insurance companies paying a large portion of the fee and negotiating them down. Canada does have a problem with fraud in their system and its mainly from uninsured Americans coming up to Canada to receive health care.
September 10th, 2003 at 1:46 pm
Couldn’t you have the best of both worlds? Couldn’t you give everyone a choice of health care plans, privately run, but the government pays for the plan (up to a certain dollar amount per person), and dictates certain minimum base coverages that must be provided? That way, everyone would be guaranteed coverage, and yet there would still be competition in the market, because I could choose to use my federal allowance toward health plan B over health plan A.
And I could choose to purchase additional coverages out of pocket. And I wouldn’t be tied to whatever health plan my current employer happens to deem sufficient. And I wouldn’t have to wait 90 days or more for coverage just because I’ve switched jobs. And small companies wouldn’t have to lose employees to bigger companies just because they couldn’t afford to fund more elaborate health plans.
It seems like such a system would be a win for everyone involved.
September 11th, 2003 at 10:36 am
Kevin: good point about Medicare/Medicaid having lower paperwork costs.
I wonder why that is? It could be economy of scale, or the fact that it’s been around so long that everyone has adapted to it. I’d be curious to find out if there were other reasons.
October 31st, 2003 at 10:51 pm
40 million Americans have no healthcare.
0 Canadiams have no healthcare.
I would much rather have a surgeon or Dr. who is motivated more by the love of his fellow man than by money. Many many many many many people go to go to the Children’s Hospital in London UK from all over the world. Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire in the UK is the best heart hospital in the world bar none. These are just two examples of hospitals in a country which has universal healthcare, where the doctors are not as motivated by money as by being doctors. We have nothing that even comes close to these hospitals here in the USA. Money (greed) is not a good motivating factor for doctors. Caring about people is the best motivating factor.
I don’t want a mercinary looking after my country in time of war, why would I want one when I am ill.
April 7th, 2004 at 7:26 pm
I have a friend who is an OR Nurse who explained to me how our U.S. insurance companies are safe guarding our health. For routine operations, for example the amputations that people with cardiovascular diseases and end stage diabetes undergo, doctors often recieve about $10 a limb. I know if that’s all I was making I probably wouldn’t be giving all of my patients 100%.
I also had a conversation with my chiropractor who pointed out how stupid the whole health insurance concept is. Would you pay for insurance covering the regular maintenance on your car (oil changes, brake jobs, etc.)? Why pay for regular maintenance on your body? It drives up the prices that doctors have to charge to make a profit.
The initial comment about the tax break seemed to me to be saying, “If my yearly insurance bill is more than my tax refund, I’m not saving anything by paying to a private company instead of paying the governement to help me and everyone else. Especially when I know that private insurance companies are more interested in their bottom line than my health.” I totally agree.
April 15th, 2004 at 6:52 pm
One thing that I find interesting is the use of comparisons between us (Americans) and other countries. We cannot and should not compare ourselves because we are totally different. We cannot justificate our past actions or future actions by what we see through other countrie’s “doings”. We have so much to learn from our own faults and have many companies such as Kaiser Permenente that have started from nowhere and now have built a strong foundation. Look for something that has worked here in America and build from that.
April 27th, 2004 at 1:53 am
Universal health care for everyone, private healthcare for those who oppose it. universal health care funds should be achieved through increas in tax, people who use private healthcare should get tax refunds.
September 9th, 2003 at 11:42 pm
Universal Healthcare
Lean Left Kevin posts about health insurance premiums, and Say Uncle does a nice job of replying. Read ’em both….