How Will Health Care Reform Control Costs and Reduce the Deficit?

So basically what you're saying, george, is that if you're rich you live, and if you're poor, or if you have the bad luck to draw a catastrophic health condition, or you spouse or mom or kids do, you die. Most people find that morally indefensible, partticularly when, if we all share the costs, we'll pay a fraction of what we pay already and everyone will be covered. Fifty years of real-world experience proves that. That's what insurance is really all about. When private companies do it it costs more and the coverage is uneven and leaves people out. When governments do it, everyone is covered and it costs less, and, yes, the health results are better.
That's simply the fact. Your views derive strictly from your ideology, not from the actual world.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

In the real world people buy their own food, clothing and shelter. Why should health care be any different?

In countries that operate universal health care systems (UK, Canada and others) the health cvare budget is the largest single element of government expense (and therefore taxes collected). I doubt seriously that people are paying "only a fraction" of what was paid previously, or that they paid previously.

You have no idea how, or from what sources, I derived the views I expressed here. Moreover I am beginning to doubt your understanding of "the actual world".

2 Replies

And in the US, health care is about a sixth of GDP (way far higher than the proportion of GDP in countries with single-payer), so, since other governments aren't paying for things like food, clothing, or shelter, it's not surprising if it's the largest percentage of government costs in other countries. In our economy as a whole it's probably just about the largest single category too. (incidentally, the percentage of health care costs the US cgovernment already pays in the US would just about cover ALL US health care based on the costs in other countries). The question is not "what people paid previously". Where on earth did you come up with that? It's what they pay there versus what we pay here.

Your grasp of the real world seems to be seriously devoid of facts, george, not mine.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

The question is not "what people paid previously". Where on earth did you come up with that? It's what they pay there versus what we pay here.

You blithely substitute your own personal preconceptions for what I actually write. The significant issue for any country contemplating a massive change in health care sysyems is the change in costs and services its citizens will experience - not any suposed comparison with different systems in different countries with different histories and public expectations.

You can believe and entertain yourself with the fatuous comparisons you read in the propaganda you consume as a replacement for thinking for yourself all you like. For my part I am free to ignore it.

0 Replies

The "fatuous propaganda" happens to be all the statistics compiled by everybody, all the health care bodies, all the governments, all the academic studies, all the economic studies. They're not figures some ideologue pulled out of a hat. They're based on half a century of actual experience and actual costs (or more--Germany's system was started by Otto von Bismarck, a right-wing authoritarian in the 19th century), and recent (Taiwan put its system into effect in the mid-90s). The process isn't simple, obviously, but the real world shows they work, cost less, keep costs down better, and satisfy clients more. The facts are on my side, george. And they are facts. Yes, you are free to ignore them, and live in the pureness of your ideology, divorced from any real experience, I grant you that.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

Bismark's intentions were to pacify the (previously rebelliuous) German population with an economic security blanket to make them more willing to accept authoritarian government. It works too. Turns them into sheep in a couple of generations. It worked and made Wilhelm & Hitler's tasks easier too.

1 Reply

Well, no, it doesn't work that way. It turns then into tigers who will rend anyone with tooth and claw who tries to take it away from them. That's democracy. Much like OmSigDavid and his guns, though a good deal more beneficial to the human condition.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

Quote:

The best way to reduce total system cost, while having the least net effect on total population life expectancy is to reduce care and cost devoted to those who have the least remining life expectancy.

I still don't get it george. You are saying that letting people die increases life expectancy? Wouldn't the opposite be true? Extending the life of those about to die would increase life expectancy.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

In countries that operate universal health care systems (UK, Canada and others) the health cvare budget is the largest single element of government expense

and it is still significantly less on a per capita basis

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

You have no idea how, or from what sources, I derived the views I expressed here.

that's because you consistently provide opinions, not facts

the lads call you on it in the political threads regularly

your sources, well, opinions come from inside your own head - not from facts

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Bismark's intentions were to pacify the (previously rebelliuous) German population with an economic security blanket to make them more willing to accept authoritarian government.

Really? I'd thought until now that this was done
a) and mainly ... to stop the Socialdemocrats to get (more) power,
b) as a reaction to stop the negative effects of his Socialist Laws in the population.

georgeob1 wrote:

It worked and made Wilhelm & Hitler's tasks easier too.

Well, our Social Laws extended from the various laws between 1881 and 1911 to "Social Book I - XII" today. Actually, the Social Court system makes it easier for citizens to get their rights ...

0 Replies

@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:
The best way to reduce total system cost, while having the least net effect on total population life expectancy is to reduce care and cost devoted to those who have the least remining life expectancy.

I still don't get it george. You are saying that letting people die increases life expectancy? Wouldn't the opposite be true? Extending the life of those about to die would increase life expectancy.

Perhaps I should use a larger typeface. I thought what I wrote was perfectly clear.

Let me try again.

Preventative care for the young and healthy is usually relatively cheap and is likely to have long term beneficial effects on life expectancy.

Alternatively, corrective care for the seriuously ill is likely to be both expensive and, because the subset of the population involved is already sick and presumably enjoys less remainiong life expectancy, will yield less increased avaeage life expectancy per dollar spent.

Thus it makes more sense for top down authoritarian health care systems to ration care for the old and sick. Moreover we can readily see this done with referral requirements and long quewes for access to specialists and expensive therapies.

The central point here is that what is good for the individual is not always good for the collective & vice versa. I prefer as much autonomy as I can maintain, and don't like to be ruled by bureaucrats. Unfortunately those who wish to "reform" the system insist on imposing their view of perfection on s all - no exceptions.

4 Replies

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
You have no idea how, or from what sources, I derived the views I expressed here.

that's because you consistently provide opinions, not facts

the lads call you on it in the political threads regularly

your sources, well, opinions come from inside your own head - not from facts

Very often what is advertised as "fact" is merely one-sided opinion. Many folks here appear to believe that anything that can be linked to some other website is necessarily an important and relevant (to the point at hand) fact. All too often it is neither factual, relevant nor important. Some of the worst violators of this here are precisely those who most loudly and bombastically anmnounce their "rersearch" and criticize others.

Life is far too short to waste arguing with such folks over such matters.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Actually, wouldn't it instead argue that the following is the way to go?

Quote:

Preventative care for the young and healthy is usually relatively cheap and is likely to have long term beneficial effects on life expectancy.

But that still doesn't explain why you think the US health care system is better because the outcome is worse.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Thus it makes more sense for top down authoritarian health care systems to ration care for the old and sick. Moreover we can readily see this done with referral requirements and long quews for access to specialists and expensive therapies.

This is often said by you and others. I only know the systems in the UK and here in Germany and some examples from the US.
Expensive therapies are paid by our health insurances, after you got the prescription from a specialist. And that specialist usually visits the old and sick persons if they are not in a hospital (there, it's done 'automatically').

I was and I still am the legal guardian of some of those "old and sick". And I never had had any difficulties ...

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Preventative care for the young and healthy is usually relatively cheap and is likely to have long term beneficial effects on life expectancy.

Alternatively, corrective care for the seriuously ill is likely to be both expensive and, because the subset of the population involved is already sick and presumably enjoys less remainiong life expectancy, will yield less increased avaeage life expectancy per dollar spent.

Thus it makes more sense for for-profit health care insurers to ration care for the old and sick. Moreover we can readily see this done with referral requirements and long quewes for access to specialists and expensive therapies.

There, I fixed it for you.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Thus it makes more sense for top down authoritarian health care systems to ration care for the old and sick. Moreover we can readily see this done with referral requirements and long quewes for access to specialists and expensive therapies.

that's an excellent description of the American for-profit health insurance system.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

In other words, opinions trump facts.

Excellent.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

It makes good sense also for the bureaucrats who run the Canadian and British health care systems. They too practice rationing of access to specialists and limiting the treatments they make available to those they presumably serve, based on cost. Our government is also starting to do the same with respect to our Medicare program. It turns out that non-profit orgainzations have almost identical motives here.

Your reference to for profit organizations was no "fix" at all. Instead it was an appeal to your own fixed prejudices and illusions and those of others as well.

3 Replies

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

In other words, opinions trump facts.

Excellent.

Not at all. Knowledge trumps opinions masquerading as facts. Not every bit of bombast proclaiming itself as fact is indeed factual. We just saw a good example with Drewdad's "for profit" nonsense above. It was no fact - instead a rather transparent appeal to the prejudices of the self-proclaimed searchers for truth here. Apparently you bought it too.

1 Reply

How Will Health Care Reform Control Costs and Reduce the Deficit?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know