The American system helps good people get to heaven more quickly and helps bad people get to hell more quickly. Win-win.
Yes, these advantages are more expensive, but it comes down to what a society’s values are: short term temporal, or eternal spiritual.
That’s the case in the UK. Way back, National Insurance (with compulsory employee and employer contributions) was established to fund old age pensions and rudimentary unemployment benefits, and a limited amount of support with access to medical care, but in reality both that and general taxation now go into the central government pot that all government expenditures come out of. Every now and again someone suggests a dedicated NHS tax, but the Treasury always fights tooth and nail against such “hypothecated” taxes. Naturally there’s always debate/shroudwaving about how much should be spent on the NHS: historically, it’s tended to go in waves of squeezes followed by splurges of catch-up spending when the clamour gets too loud for governments to ignore (and they start losing by-elections because of it).
The overall budget allocation (which may come with targets for priority investment, as it might be, mental health services or midwifery, or whatever) goes mostly to local “commissioning groups”, which are governed by representatives of local GP practices, with at least a nurse as well as lay representatives with specialist financial and local knowledge. How much they get to allocate is based on a demographic formula for each area, and they decide what services to “buy” for the year, from NHS hospitals and/or outside private contractors. I may be wrong, but I think that’s about 60% of the money, the rest being spent centrally on capital investment, specialist services, incentives for innovation and so on. The CCG for my area covers the local borough council area, about 260k people, and had about £420m to allocate in the most recent set of accounts.
It is difficult to reconcile the spiritual argument with the pragmatic argument.
How does one assign economic values to non-economic values? For this problem, have a look at Atif Kubursi’.
If you are looking for health and economic data, but not spiritual data, have a look at World Health Organization’s annual reports on World Health Statistics, e.g. 2018, but the economic argument sans non-economic values is grossly one-sided against the spiritual argument. The WHO’s data sets and reports go back for years (e.g. my post in 2004 based in part on their 2000 data).
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided by part of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ,” so one could argue that being forced into having to pay into a government medical funding system is contrary to one’s constitutional right to free exercise of religion. Unfortunately, this argument has never got very far, but if the government tries to ram socialized health care down your throat, you might wish to challenge it by taking a conscientious objector approach, but don’t hold your breath (well, at least if you are not ready to meet your maker quite yet), for if socialized health care to work optimally, it prefers very large / single payor base, so expect resistance to the inclusion of opting out options.
Wouldn’t you have to demonstrate that there is some form of religious worship and practice that is thereby somehow prevented, inhibited or punished, in a way that does not equally apply to a government funding system for the military, fire and police services and so on? Damned if I can think of one.
Health care is what a patient/person receives, ranging from diagnosis and treatment to dissemination of health information.
A health care provider may be in a private practice (e.g. a family doctor) or may be publically employed (e.g. hematopathologist in a state/public hospital).
Health insurance is one, but not the only one, of the ways to pay the health care providers.
Health insurance plans can be run by the private sector or run by the public sector.
Health insurance may be funded privately by individuals/businesses, and/or publically by taxation of individuals/businesses or by some combination thereof.
There are terms that set out what a health insurance plan, be it private or public, will cover.
I very much expect that you are correct, however, when it comes to the intersection of religion and the USA constitution, it’s the wild west.
Is it? Is there a lot of precedent for this? Any examples of American courts ruling that, say, opposition to Medicare of Medicaid - which most Americans have been paying for their entire lives - is a religion? Those programs have existed for over half a century; has anyone gotten far with a lawsuit saying that paying taxes for those things violates the establishment clause?
The exception is written into statute, 26 U.S.C. §1402(e) and (g). Paragraph (e) exempts certain religious people from the tax, if they earn income through the religion and apply for an exception. Paragraph (g) exempts certain religious people from the tax regardless of where the income comes from:
"Any individual may file an application (in such form and manner, and with such official, as may be prescribed by regulations under this chapter) for an exemption from the tax imposed by this chapter if he is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof and is an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division by reason of which he is conscientiously opposed to acceptance of the benefits of any private or public insurance which makes payments in the event of death, disability, old-age, or retirement or makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medical care (including the benefits of any insurance system established by the Social Security Act).
~Max
I think UHC is better than what America has. There are many ways to get to UHC, including Single-Payer like Canada, UK’s NHS, Singapore’s 3M system, Switzerland/Netherlands ACA-on-steroids system, etc. I think our political system in the US gets in the way of accomplishing UHC by any of the above means. We have taken steps along the way that have gotten us closer, but still have a ways to go.
I think other countries that have had slavery and subjugation of indigenous populations have already accomplished UHC. So, I don’t think that has anything to do with it. That’s a simple-minded explanation that doesn’t do anything to advance debate on why the US doesn’t have UHC. If I didn’t know better, I would read that as the ramblings of someone who isn’t interested in understanding why we don’t have UHC.
Currently, polling suggests that most Americans would support UHC:
So, in spite of the brainwashing of “most” Americans that you speak of, there is majority support for UHC in this country.
There is a political system in this country that makes change difficult, hard to implement, and that puts the brakes on majorities pushing through their agenda on any topic - healthcare or any other really. So, changes over time come incrementally. Healthcare is one of those areas. And this was the case even when both parties were sane. Currently, the Republican party is not a sane party. And sometimes, we even take steps backward, which is what happened when Trump was elected, and took steps to attack the ACA.
…it isn’t just the subjugation and the slavery. That wasn’t the only thing I said.
And yet with your contribution here you’ve added nothing to the conversation. If I didn’t know any better I would have read the ramblings of someone who has spent the last couple of years arguing **against **UHC. I’m glad you’ve finally come around.
You **still **don’t have UHC. Most Americans would probably want a puppy. That doesn’t mean that puppies are around the corner.
And the propaganda is daily and relentless.
This doesn’t dispute anything I’ve said.
I don’t care if it was the only thing. You bringing up slavery is nonsense in this context.
I’ve never argued against UHC. I’ve had disagreements with Bernie’s Medicare for All plan, specifically the abolition of private insurance. You’re mistaking one argument for the other.
I know it’s relentless. But “most” Americans as you’ve alleged are not brainwashed, in spite of it. That was my point.
But you didn’t talk about it earlier. So, it needed to be said. What I said is more the reason for not having UHC than “slavery and subjugation”. Your earlier post was nonsense.
…are you going to be bumping this thread every few days just to quibble about something I’ve said? Because this conversation pretty much died nearly a week ago. You are welcome to do so of course, but it was just luck that I saw this and I probably won’t respond readily.
In those other discussions we talked about a generic “Medicare for all” that was a stand-in for Universal Healthcare. But it was never (always) specifically about Bernie’s particular plan.
I used quotes around “brainwashed” for a reason. Can you guess what that reason was? And I think the evidence is clear that the propaganda has been effective. You still don’t have universal healthcare. That was my point.
So?
Does it feel better that you got that off your chest?
It was more than just “slavery and subjugation”, but you’ve already admitted that you are going to continue to pretend that it wasn’t.
You aren’t doing a very good job of convincing me to stop supporting Universal Healthcare. Is there any part of the OP you would like to discuss or debate?
I’ll hear from you again in about 3 or 4 days!
I’m pretty sure the standard reason to oppose UHC is because UHC means that money is going to help poor people. (And also the larger set of people who should not be helped: Everybody Who Is Not Me.) There are various other programs to help poor people, and they are also opposed by the same people who oppose UHC.
If you don’t recognize the merit of wishing that poor people would suffer and die, then you don’t really have the enlightened attitude necessary to support a solid philosophical opposition to UHC. You should work on that.
You seem to be taking this very personal. I’m not “pretending” on anything. You’re essentially calling me a liar with that accusation. My speed of response to you is none of your business.
Post #89 is where I responded to your OP, commented on my view of UHC, which I support, and which I have supported for years. And I’m not trying to stop you from supporting UHC. I criticized your view of the reasons why we don’t have UHC in the US, and I showed polling that indicates the majority of Americans are not brainwashed by the propaganda, and I offered other explanations why we don’t have UHC. Don’t conflate whether we have UHC with being brainwashed…those are different things.
…LOL 
not at all!
Pretending is an apt characterization. There was a wider context to what I said. You’ve chosen to ignore that wider context.
If I had intended to “call you a liar” I would have done so. I don’t think you are a liar, I didn’t intend to call you a liar, I didn’t call you a liar, I didn’t essentially call you a liar, calling you a liar is against the rules and I haven’t done so.
I hope I’ve cleared that up for you.
Yeah, but when you respond to a thread (especially as passionately as you have here) that died several days ago it can be hard to actually remember exactly what it was we were originally discussing. This discussion has essentially been played out. There really isn’t much more that anyone can add. I’m not entirely sure what it is that you think you are adding. At best its a nitpick on a point that is entirely tangential to the OP.
You supported a system of UHC that doesn’t actually guarantee universality, a cornerstone of UHC. The 3 legs of the plan you support don’t deliver universality, by your own definition. This isn’t UHC. Its an expanded ACA. I talked about it at length in the other thread. You refused to concede that the system you supported had gaps and wasn’t universal. Now that you’ve bought it up again in this thread: do you concede that your system had gaps and that not everyone was guaranteed coverage? Are you now abandoning support for the expanded ACA and are you now fully behind UHC?
But that’s kinda the point of the thread
I used “brainwashed” in quotes for a reason. Can you guess what that reason was? The cite doesn’t say anything at all about the degree of “brainwashing”: you’ve interpreted the data and presented a subjective conclusion, that’s all.