Can someone explain the health care 'crisis' to me?

[natedogg]

The health care crisis is a manufactured crisis, just like child obesity, peak oil, immigration, and every other "crisis" that is supposedly bringing our country down. Notice that the solutions required by the fearmongers never fail to increase their own power. What an amazing coincidence. I wonder why that is?


With regard to "health care crisis", the truth is everybody in this country can get insurance for a reasonable price if they are responsible enough to buy the insurance BEFORE they come down with something. And even then, thanks to intrusive regulations, your fellow employees are basically forced to shoulder the burden of the cost of your uninsured condition anyway.

All you have to do is GET A JOB and you will be covered. And yes, some people get screwed when they lose their job for more than 2 years or so, and that is the fault of current govt interventionism. Why is your insurance tied to your job in the first place? Because of stupid government regulations. And as always, government creates a problem, then decries the existence of the problem and calls for a solution that requires more government intervention. Rinse and repeat.

In an extreme scenario where you are too sick to get a job and you are not already covered, all you have to do is have your spouse get a job. And even then, short of cancer or other major conditions you can still afford to just BUY THE SERVICE. Yes, even people living on low wages can arrange for loans and payment plans to get a surgery, assuming they don't just go freeload off the ER or the county hospital (Yes! We already provide free health care to the very poorest uninsured folks anyway! So what's the problem? It's a manufactured crisis designed to secure more power. That's all).

Putting aside for now what you as a citizen should do for people who failed to buy fire insurance and had the misfortune of a their house getting burned down, this situation is not proof that the system is broken.

In fact, if you are insured you have amazing health care and often at very little additional cost to yourself. Some co-pays are nonexistent or as low as 20 bucks.


The fact that someone fails to buy insurance and then suffers an event that could have been insured is NOT proof that the system is broken.

I'm not saying "let them die" but I am saying that there's no crisis in american health care.

natedogg

[ConstantineX]

Canada's Waiting Time

Canada's only comparative advantage with regards to us is their prescription drugs. And the ACers even have an argument there, alleging that the copyright laws in the US artificially increases barriers to entry, and that patent length obviously constrains generics within.

Free-market capitalism is obviously the best system for nearly all industries. That's why the majority of economists have been at pains to develop the mathematics, prove theorems, and find highly convoluted examples of market failures (Disclaimer: I am not saying they don't exist). Only human irrationality complicates these things, combined with willing rent-seekers to profit of our fears. Everyone wants someone else to pay for their goods. Diffuse economic benefits don't incite us as much as concentrated losses, especially when we are predisposed to notice losses more than gains. We want extraordinarily high prices for insurance when the relative risks don't warrant it. And it seems like our policymakers want to disregard incentives.

We've only had truly efficacious medicine for 70 years and suddenly its a basic human right. I propose that it will improves only when its respective actors are both exposed to economic risks and benefits.

[hmkpoker]

Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

Most of the social health care models are closer to the size of states than to the USA. Sweden, which boasts the world's most lavish cradle-to-grave welfare state, has a population that is only the size of New Jersey. More people live in the Philadelphia metro area than live in the entire country of Norway. The state of California has a larger population than Canada.

[TomCollins]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

Most of the social health care models are closer to the size of states than to the USA. Sweden, which boasts the world's most lavish cradle-to-grave welfare state, has a population that is only the size of New Jersey. More people live in the Philadelphia metro area than live in the entire country of Norway. The state of California has a larger population than Canada.

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Two reasons-

1) Supposedly states are not allowed have "citizens", in so much that someone who needs health care could easily declare residency in one state that has great health care coverage, then move back home after he is better. I highly doubt there isn't some way to work around this.

2) All the deadbeats would move to states that provided the most coverage, and all the people who pay for it would move to a state that did not tax them rediculous amounts. In short, because people would be free to choose not to participate.

[Dan.]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

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They don't only focus on the Federal level

[Dan.]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

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They don't only focus on the Federal level

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Shameless bump, as I'm interested to what you guys think about state-based health care (obviously opposed from an AC perspective...but I'd like to hear some discussion. The link is not a rickroll either, btw)

[TomCollins]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

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They don't only focus on the Federal level

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Decentralization is great. I think we all would be much happier if we allowed smaller areas to govern as much or as little as they wanted to. California could become a socialist paradise, and New Hampshire could become land of the free. Even better, let people go down to localities. Let San Fransisco do what it wants, and let Sunnyvale do something else. People can move where they want and support the programs they want.

[Dan.]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't only focus on the Federal level

[/ QUOTE ]

Decentralization is great. I think we all would be much happier if we allowed smaller areas to govern as much or as little as they wanted to. California could become a socialist paradise, and New Hampshire could become land of the free. Even better, let people go down to localities. Let San Fransisco do what it wants, and let Sunnyvale do something else. People can move where they want and support the programs they want.

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Do you expect me to disagree?

[TomCollins]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't only focus on the Federal level

[/ QUOTE ]

Decentralization is great. I think we all would be much happier if we allowed smaller areas to govern as much or as little as they wanted to. California could become a socialist paradise, and New Hampshire could become land of the free. Even better, let people go down to localities. Let San Fransisco do what it wants, and let Sunnyvale do something else. People can move where they want and support the programs they want.

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Do you expect me to disagree?

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No. I would expect fascists like iron to disagree though.

[Richard Tanner]

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Might I ask why liberals always focus on Federally-provided social health care and not state-based health care? It seems ridiculous that the states could not provide their own social health care.

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't only focus on the Federal level

[/ QUOTE ]

Decentralization is great. I think we all would be much happier if we allowed smaller areas to govern as much or as little as they wanted to. California could become a socialist paradise, and New Hampshire could become land of the free. Even better, let people go down to localities. Let San Fransisco do what it wants, and let Sunnyvale do something else. People can move where they want and support the programs they want.

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When I was younger and learning (from our oppressive overlords) about the founding of the US and such, I always imagined (before I knew what the nation was like) that this was how things were. That Nevada was a state filled with blackjack and hookers and that Nebraska was a "down-home" land with more restrictions. How wrong I was.

Cody