Re: Universal Health Care
 

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Except that defense is more efficient when supplied on a "universal national" basis. Nobody has demonstrated that it is true for health care. The countries that provide socialized health care are evidence that it isn't true, since they are either extremely expensive, lower quality or both.

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It has been shown that the perceived supremacy and lower cost of our health care system compared to the world is a myth. Google it yourself (or see below). Americans pay more per capita on health care compared to any other western nation. Yes, we pay a lot more -- to say that the rest of the world is more expensive is a lie! Stop repeating how efficient our system is when the data suggests it isn't. When you pay more than twice as much per capita as the rest of the world, and still have 43 million w/o coverage compared to 100% coverage elsewhere, you are by any definition of the word, more INEFFICIENT than the rest of the world. It is that simple. You are regurgitating talking points which have no basis in facts -- please show some supporting data to say the rest of the world is more expensive, more inefficient, and worse service, if you can.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S.%20HCweb.pdf

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...onovan/who.jpg

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ovan/costs.jpg

And before you claim our increased spending results in better health, that is wrong, too. We rank near the middle to bottom of western nations in areas like life expectancy and infant mortality (we're at bottom). So we pay more, cover less, and have worse results -- how does this make us more efficent?

Re: Universal Health Care
 

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So we pay more, cover less, and have worse results -- how does this make us more efficent?

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By efficiently creating cash cow investments for those that can afford to provide health care services at those high rates?

Re: Universal Health Care
 

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And I'm still waiting for your outrage against "universal national defense". Which of course isn't free, either, and results in higher taxes as well.

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I'm opposed to it! Of course, if we actually had "universal national defense" it wouldn't be nearly as objectionable as what we really have, which is "univeral national offense." But that's another thread.

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Concur. But I know you are consistent in your outrage against federal programs. Conservatives on the other hand...

Re: Universal Health Care
 

Your argument might set a new record for number of straw men per paragraph.

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Universal Health Care...Three little words that keep popping up. Sounds great... right? After all its free...right? Hey sign me up!

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What about the phrase "universal health care" implies that it is free?

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But the real story is that it is a bad idea. Bottom line Universal Health Care= higher taxes. But don`t take my word for it. Ask those who live with it, like the nation of Norway.



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OK, have you actually asked anyone from Norway?

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The goverment ( Norway ) is giving you free health care, or at least that is what they say.



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Who is "they"? Do you have some evidence that the government of Norway claims their healthcare doesn't cost anything to their citizens?

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Remember free health care is a bitter pill to swallow. Would you rather spend 20 dollars co-pay on a doctors visit or an extra 20 grand or more on a new car?


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Are you saying the only cost of healthcare in the U.S. (or at least the primary costs) is co-pays for doctor visits?

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Wouldn`t be free for those people who pay little or no taxes if it is in the form of sales tax. Which in all likelihood it would be.

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What is your evidence that health care would be financed through sales tax? Seeing as how the federal government has never financed anything through a sales tax, I can't imagine it would start here.

Re: Universal Health Care
 

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Wouldn`t be free for those people who pay little or no taxes if it is in the form of sales tax. Which in all likelihood it would be. These are the people(the poor)who believe they are getting it free.

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Are you for universal health care if everyone signs a statement that they understand that it is only "free" in the same sense as the fire dept is free? Because I think people wouldn't mind that. And since this seems to be your only argument presented against the idea of universal health care...

Re: Universal Health Care
 

My problem with it is:

1) It creates a higher tax rate, which in turn is a deterrent to economic growth and stabilty.

2) I`d rather my doctor and i make my medical desicions,instead of some goverment bureaucracy.

3) It is socialism in its truest form.

The need for health care reform is without doubt. But a system ran by a goverment bureaucracy isn`t the anwser.

Re: Universal Health Care
 

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My problem with it is:

1) It creates a higher tax rate, which in turn is a deterrent to economic growth and stabilty.

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All govt programs increase taxes. Are you as equally against outrageous spending on our military? If not, you're being a hypocrite.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...rySpending.jpg


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2) I`d rather my doctor and i make my medical desicions,instead of some goverment bureaucracy.

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Most people with insurance already have their medical decisions approved by a bureaucracy, and a bureaucracy that views them as costs rather than patients and often denies procedures as an automatic response. In other western nations, doctors have more ability (not less) to make decisions regarding their patients compared to the US insurance industry.

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3) It is socialism in its truest form.

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It is no more socialist than many other govt programs. I find it ironic when some right wingers are against "socialist" health care, but yet support a draft if major war broke out (or even during peacetime). This is the ultimate hypocrisy. Besides, "socialism" is just a label anyway. You already support a system which taxes its citizens to provide certain services for all, such as: education, fire, police, defense, environment, safety, parks, recreation, rehabilitation, prison, corporate oversight, regulating communications systems, space exploration, job skills, housing for disadvantaged, orphan care, mental hospitals, postal delivery, etc. Yet, health care is "socialism". If you want to be consistent, rail against NASA and the National Park Service with equal vigor.

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The need for health care reform is without doubt. But a system ran by a goverment bureaucracy isn`t the anwser.

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Well, here's the thing: It's been shown to work quite well in other countries, and by many measures (cost, coverage, efficiency, etc.) our system is the worst. So, you can talk reform all you want, but it's currently broke and I see no other proposal on the table to fix it.

Re: Universal Health Care
 

Editted to remove pointless snarky comment.

So the United States, in aggregate, spends more dollars per capita on health care? So what?

I notice the graph shows dollars spent on health care per capita, rather than the fraction of per capita production spent on health care. Adjusting for this produces a number that is much more in line with the nearest countries, although US spending is still the highest at about 11%, with the nearest other country being germany at 9%. Hence total US health care spending is only of order 20-25% higher than Germany, rather than the misleading 50% above the nearest country (Switzerland) indicated by the original graph.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...dog/chart1.jpg

But even this number is deceptive. It is an elementary thought experiment to decide what the implications of this logic is: If a government wants to spend it's countries health care dollars more "efficiently", all it has to do is nationalize the health care system, and then not spend anything on health care at all. What an astonishingly low sum to spend on health care! Surely such a health care system is a marvel to be emulated. Any country can look more "efficient" under this criteria by simply spending less on the health care of their citizens. This is most blatantly the case in the UK, where the socialized health care system is an ongoing national unnatural disaster of shortages, wait lists, rationing, and simple non-treatment.

Americans can spend a higher fraction of their income on health care because health care is largely a luxury good. As real income increases relative to higher priority goods like food, clothing, shelter, energy, etc., more "discretionary" income is available for less critical things like entertainment and healthcare. America with it's high per capita average income will have of course see a higher than average fraction of that income dedicated to these things. Should we conclude that our theater industry is "inefficient" because American's spend a much high fraction of their income on movies than any other country in the world?

Furthermore, these kinds of international comparisons are useless in the absence of incredibly high end regression analysis with a tremendous amount of data, since they violate ceteris paribus, i.e. all else is not equal. Even in that case the results are always open to interpretation. Americans are the fattest people in the world, as everyone likes to tell us. We voluntarily choose to be so, but the cost is in poorer average health, poorer average health that must be paid for by increased health care spending, so we spend more.

Altogether I am reminded of the ridiculous claims that health care is better in Cuba in the United States because infant mortality is lower, without regard to the fact that neonatal care in the United States is so superior that high-risk pregnancies that simply become miscarriages in other countries become premature births in the United States, thus leading to elevated infant mortality rates.

Lastly, I find it laughable that the authors of the study neglect to tell us that the reasons that healthcare goods and services and administrative costs are rising so fast is because of the cost of regulatory compliance and administration imposed by government, a large part of which non-profit and government run hospitals are exempted from.

In every industry that is not heavily regulated, intervened in, or outright monopolized by a government, quality rises over time while prices fall. In every single industry where the reverse is true, quality falls while prices rise; roads (traffic jams and potholes abound, bridges collapse), public education (need I elaborate on the astounding ignorance of American high school produce?), police (who in many areas don't even bother to take police reports or respond to burglaries anymore), courts (where the right to a speedy trial is a ridiculous joke with defendents waiting months and sometimes years for trial), and yes, health care and health care insurance.

The idea that more competition is somehow supposed to raise prices while less competition is somehow supposed to lower prices is economically farcical, and has been known to be so for hundreds of years.

Why is it so hard for people to see and remember the results of government granted monopolies?

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../old-phone.jpg

Edit to add:

And it just occurred to me. What would the socialists be telling us if it were the case that the US spent less on health care per capita than other countries? Why, this too would be evidence of the "need" for socialized medicine. "Market failure!" Would be the cry. "People can't afford to spend enough on their health care! We need the government to step in and increase funding!"

Whatever the topic, whatever the data, the argument is always the same: More government, more control in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, more centralization of power into the hands of the few, and less power in the hands of the consumer to make their own plans and choices.

Re: Universal Health Care
 

Dude, chill.

The point of that data is to refute Copernicus's claim that other health care systems are more expensive than ours. Whether per capita or GDP, ours costs more per citizen. That is not sufficient to say others are superior, because you rightly bring up other factors. But it is sufficient to show that others aren't vastly more expensive.

Edited to remove snarky retort to snarky remark.

Re: Universal Health Care
 

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Except that defense is more efficient when supplied on a "universal national" basis. Nobody has demonstrated that it is true for health care. The countries that provide socialized health care are evidence that it isn't true, since they are either extremely expensive, lower quality or both.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has been shown that the perceived supremacy and lower cost of our health care system compared to the world is a myth. Google it yourself (or see below). Americans pay more per capita on health care compared to any other western nation. Yes, we pay a lot more -- to say that the rest of the world is more expensive is a lie ! Stop repeating how efficient our system is when the data suggests it isn't. When you pay more than twice as much per capita as the rest of the world, and still have 43 million w/o coverage compared to 100% coverage elsewhere, you are by any definition of the word, more INEFFICIENT than the rest of the world. It is that simple. You are regurgitating talking points which have no basis in facts -- please show some supporting data to say the rest of the world is more expensive, more inefficient, and worse service, if you can.



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You are quoting a lie yourself.... this number is arrived at by counting every person who spends one day without health insurance...i.e. changing jobs, being unemployed for a week or two....(also add spouses and dependents). There are also many people who choose not to be insured... one of the more famous that I know of is Rush Limbaugh. There are also companies out there which offer X amount of dollars for insurance...employees can choose a plan and use that money, or opt out and take it as income.

Bottom Line... right now in America, there are nowhere near 40 plus million uninsured. And faced with an emergency, there is 100% coverage in the US.