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

[bluesbassman]

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Nature of the crisis:

Cost of health care per capita is unreasonably high.



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Uh-oh. Whenever a leftist thinks the price of something is "unreasonably" high, get ready for calls to trample liberty, with disastrous individual and economic costs.

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Public health, preventative medicine and community-based general practice are in decline as boutique specialists and high-end diagnostic and surgical procedures increase.


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If true, maybe because that's what the public demands? Nah, the central planning high-priests know what's best.

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Pharmaceutical research is wholly profit-driven.

The health-care professional culture is increasingly entrepreneurial, rather than motivated by public service.


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And as any entrepreneur can tell you, satisfying the public is NOT the way to make profits. That's why only the wealthy can afford restaurant food, basic retail items, and consumer electronics. If only the government had highly regulated those industries too, things like computers, cell phones, food, and clothes would be cheap and widely available even to middle and lower income folks.

Those brilliant pharmaceutical researchers, greedy doctors, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton are all to blame for unreasonably high prices in health care, computers, and goods. The government should step in and make their respective industries unprofitable and serve the "public interest" instead.

I don't want the most brilliant minds working to cure diseases or to develop new procedures, which is what will happen if health care is profit-driven. I want those people to become government bureaucrats or trial lawyers, of whom we need more.

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A two-tier, public/private system (with emphasis on the public part). Universal health care does not have to mean nothing but comprehensive "socialized" medicine.


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Translation: Socialized health-care sounds bad, so let's call it a "two-tier" system with "emphasis" on the public part.

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A general acceptance at every level of government that basic health care is a fundamental right of all persons in the United States, including guests, and particularly the very young and the very old.

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And if a particular good/service becomes a "right," then the producers of that "right" become slaves. Good idea, especially for health-care.

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A re-dedication to health care screening for elementary school children, less emphasis on "parents' rights" on this issue, more emphasis on fundamental dental care and nutrition.

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To hell with the "right" of parents to decide who may poke, prod, and "screen" their own children. That is not for THEM to decide, and besides, it is necessary to keep the socialized... er, I mean "public two-tier" health care costs down.

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Government support for "orphan" drug research and a change in the basic model of the pharmaceutical sector to bring it more in line with public health demands.


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Yeah, if those [censored] pharmaceutical companies weren't so profit-driven, they would better satisfy the needs of the public!

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If the society should ever opt for a two-year period of national service for all young men and women (as I have long believed it should), the entry phase should focus profoundly on individual health issues -- identify deficiencies early and fix 'em pronto. This is another opportunity for fresh medical/dental graduates.

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Great idea, let's not only enslave doctors, but everyone. You score points of consistency, if not morality. Such a national "service" provides an additional "opportunity" for recent medical school grads. Arbeit macht frei!

This is all necessary to bring down those pesky, "unreasonable" health-care costs.

[sandycove]

Last comments...

Shake... The right? Implied, even explicit in the Constitution, and certainly in the tradition of the brotherhood of man.

Tol... Supply and demand? Certainly not, in the sense I perceive you mean it, assuming there is sufficient quantity and resources. It's not properly a commercial enterprise at its core. (Obviously, if we do not have the means to supply it, the demand is irrelevant.)

Denying access to the allegedly less deserving? This is a matter for the medical ethics department (and there should be one). My view is that equal access does not equate with automatic eligibility for extraordinary measures like transplants or free-rolls for elective procedures like cosmetic surgery. My argument is simply that health care is fundamentally a social issue and that it is in everyone's best interests to encourage and promote and deliver, as best we can, wellness throughout every sector of society. A matter of principle, not principal.

[tolbiny]

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Supply and demand? Certainly not, in the sense I perceive you mean it, assuming there is sufficient quantity and resources

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There is never sufficient quantity and resources. Would anyone ever not choose to go to a doctor whose degree was from a better school, or one who had a better track record, or one who had a better bedside manner and made them feel more at ease? If it took only a few seconds and no money I would get a strep throat test every time I felt a tingle in the back of my mouth to try to head off the several days of suffering.
Lower costs (not due to technological advancement)-> increased use -> shortages -> higher costs/lower quality

(market) more profit -> more incentives
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increased demand -> higher costs
\(price control) no additional profit -> shortages

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This is a matter for the medical ethics department

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Nice, not much opportunity for corruption there, plus no additional costs for having an extra layer of paperwork, plus no loopholes in the rules written /end sarcasm

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My argument is simply that health care is fundamentally a social issue and that it is in everyone's best interests to encourage and promote and deliver, as best we can, wellness throughout every sector of society.

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Your solution goes about it in the worst way possible. stifles innovation, shifts costs from unhealthy people to health people which reduces incentives for being healthy, and restricts individual choice which decreases utility.

[pvn]

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Shake... The right? Implied, even explicit in the Constitution, and certainly in the tradition of the brotherhood of man.

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Cite plz.

[JuntMonkey]

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See the movie Sicko by M. Moore, it should be coming out soon.

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Yes lets all see Mr. Moore's genius plans to turn America socialist, sounds like a fair and balanced documentary exploring ideas from all angles.

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I saw a very thought-provoking clip where he was in a UK hospital walking around interviewing random people. He asked a couple who had just had a baby, "so how much did you have to pay to have your baby delivered?" They looked at him dumbstruck. He asked several more people, and the answer he gets is "it's free!"

Then he goes to the "Cashier" and it turns out the cashier actually GIVES you money for travel expenses.

It's [censored] [censored] that we don't get this free stuff too.

[Nonfiction]

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It's [censored] [censored] that we don't get this free stuff too.

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Hope this post is sarcasm?

[JuntMonkey]

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It's [censored] [censored] that we don't get this free stuff too.

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Hope this post is sarcasm?

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Course.

[PLOlover]

I think the main point for a lot of people is that the US spends a billion dollars a day in iraq, and people think to themselves, how come I can't even go to the doctor when I get sick? how come the school my kids go to has a leaky roof? why are all my tax dollars being wasted?

[pokerbobo]

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I think the main point for a lot of people is that the US spends a billion dollars a day in iraq, and people think to themselves, how come I can't even go to the doctor when I get sick? how come the school my kids go to has a leaky roof? why are all my tax dollars being wasted?

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You can't go to the doctor? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[natedogg]

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do you make minimum wage? if you did, you wouldn't have access to affordable health care, and, when you only make 7 or 8 bucks an hour, you can't afford to go to the doc

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Actually, that's not true. As I've mentioned many times on this board, health insurance is actually very reasonable and even someone making only 8/hr can afford coverage. And there are actually some jobs like that which provide health benefits to full time workers.

If an 8/hr employee has kids, and no work benefits, the personal cost of health insurance goes up of course, but so does the amount of public assistance you can get with an income like that while being a parent.

In many states, health care for your children is already free. Low-income families can qualify for the free state health care for children. Even so, buying your own is pretty cheap. I cover my own family with a personal plan purchased out of pocket for 333/month. Granted that would not be easy on 8/hr but its doable. At 8/hr you're making about 1700 month and probably even getting EIC back at the end of the year if you've got kids. (without kids, it's a done deal, you can afford insurance without question).

The fact is, the only people who aren't covered with health insurance are those who made a choice not to buy insurance.

I'm not saying the choice is easy. There's a LOT of things you can't afford when you make 8/hr, and being poor sucks. Your kids will wear second hand clothing, and eat free hot lunches at school, and you'll have no cable tv, and you can't smoke, it's too expensive. You might not even have a car. If you're single, you probably share an apt if not share a room. If you're married your spouse is certainly working too and you're probably dependent on state-funded day care or family members to help with the kids (although I WILL point out that having kids was a choice too). It's obvious that when you're living on 8/hr you don't have much. But you CAN afford health insurance.

If you go without health insurance, it's your own choice.

natedogg