Vastly more efficient means it does more for the same resources.
Here it is in pictures to help you understand: http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-costs-around-the-world_2010-03-01/
*The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way.
If there is this much rationing, why don’t we hear about it? And if other countries ration less, why do we hear about them? The answer is that their systems are publicly accountable, and ours is not. Problems with their health care systems are aired in public; ours are not. For example, in Canada, when waits for care emerged in the 1990s, Parliament hotly debated the causes and solutions. Most provinces have also established formal reporting systems on waiting lists, with wait times for each hospital posted on the Internet. This public attention has led to recent falls in waits there.
In U.S. health care, no one is ultimately accountable for how the system works. No one takes full responsibility. Rationing in our system is carried out covertly through financial pressure, forcing millions of individuals to forgo care or to be shunted away by caregivers from services they can’t pay for.
The rationing that takes place in U.S. health care is unnecessary. A number of studies (notably a General Accounting Office report in 1991 and a Congressional Budget Office report in 1993) show that there is more than enough money in our health care system to serve everyone if it were spent wisely. Administrative costs are at 31% of U.S. health spending, far higher than in other countries’ systems. These inflated costs are due to our failure to have a publicly financed, universal health care system. We spend about twice as much per person as Canada or most European nations, and still deny health care to many in need. A national health program could save enough on administration to assure access to care for all Americans, without rationing.*
Sorry for the minor thread-jack, but Barkis needed some facts.
Not true. The main problem with healthcare is insurance companies. The only way to do anything about them is through governmental regulations.
I have healthcare through my work, they pay half, but I still can’t afford routine Heathcare because every year they (the insurance company) drop our old policy and make us choose a new one. Our choices are the same coverage for more money monthly or less coverage and higher deductibles for the same thing we were paying or slightly less. Basically our deductibles are now so high that the insurance is mostly just in case we get hit with a catastrophic illness but we’ll still go broke paying our deductibles.
The insurance company gets away with pulling this crap and they’ve been doing it every year for the past several years. When we try to switch providers we’ll get a lower quote then we have to fill out some questionnaires and then they tell us they can’t offer us that lower price because someone has some existing issue.
So yes, healthcare needs to be fixed.
Even if government-run healthcare is more efficient, I would still be against it.
I do not believe the federal government should have anything to do with healthcare. We need to continue to scale back its involvement until it’s zero.
There you have it, folks. It doesn’t matter if it’s better, if it’s cheaper, if it saves lives, or if the country and world would be a vastly better and safer place for us, our children, and their children.
“It’s the gummint, dagnabbit, so I’s gonna *oppose *it!”
It must really suck thinking you’re so free, and being trapped in such a tiny prison of your own construction.
Well you see, that’s where your ideology blinds you. I don’t care that you’ve decided on an irrational and backwards view of the universe. What matters is that the most people lead the best lives.
People get sick through no fault of their own. In a “free market” system, sick people won’t be able to get health insurance. This is a fact. This is actually what happens under our old system. Many people are simply priced out of the market. If you have a solid middle class job it’s perfectly possible to not be able to afford insurance. I’m a self-employed asthmatic for instance. I assure you, insurance for me isn’t cheap. Luckily, I have a policy through my wife.
You are advocating a system that will both cost more and lead to more suffering. You’re willing to pay extra money to hurt more people, just so your ideology is served.
That you have such a devotion to a stupid ideology makes you evil. It doesn’t make you right.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that scaling it back in that manner would lead to poor health care and unnecessary death for large numbers of Americans? Would you still be for scaling it back? If so, why?
It continually amazes me that conservatives are not in favor of universal healthcare. It takes the weight of company-provided insurance off the backs of small businesses while also guaranteeing that the workforce is healthier and happier and thus more productive. It provides the same level of care for less money or more care for the same amount of money.
Healthcare is, in effect, infrastructure. It’s no different from the road and highway system. It provides the means for private companies to go about their business with ease without needing to be concerned about clearing their own path through the brambles and brush. It seems like one of the basic things a government should concern itself with.
But then, it ain’t got shit to do with guns and shooting people different from you, so fuck it.
Nothing amazing about it. Conservative rhetoric is driven by big business. Private health insurance is one of the biggest. Therefore conservative rhetoric supports private health insurance. Simple.
The problem is that conservatives in America are so uninformed they don’t understand even basic issues. I’ll bet that the vast majority of people against “Obamacare” think it will mean waiting in line for the DMV. Take a number and go to a doctor window. They don’t understand that the actual providers will still be the same, just the insurance side is changed.
True. What ensaddens me is so many individuals who claim to be sensible fiscal conservatives looking out for SMBs oppose it for the Big Business reason.
I’m not familiar with the term “SMB”.
Small and Medium Business[es].
Sorry, it gets used a lot in the work I do, so I used it without thinking.
No problem. Your statement makes perfect sense now. Why do they claim to be trying to protect small businesses while constantly taking positions that favor large businesses over small?
The answer, of course, is that it’s really large businesses that they favor. However, that wouldn’t go over well politically, so they claim to favor small businesses and then spin LB friendly policies as favoring SMBs (even when they really don’t).
The other thing they do is spin things that favor LBs as favoring workers. Of course quite often those workers are in China and “favor” means “enslave”.
It wasn’t an issue in my state, but for the record, I’m in favor of legalization and/or decriminalization of pretty much everything. Possibly just plain everything.
I’ll distract 'em while you make a break for the car!
That’ll be $50.
Too bad it was three sentences, not one. Also: awesome.
Maybe they meant to X-TREEEEEM*!!!*
Agreed.
$5 says he’s posting this from his Medicare-paid Rascal.
And really, the insurance companies are the only ones who benefit from the current model. It’s a massive burden for everyone else, and it’s hurting the ability of companies that employ Americans to be competitive globally.
I’m not necessarily against government involvement in healthcare. But according to the 10th Amendment, it must be done at the state level, *not *the federal level.
According to your reading of the tenth amendment. You will note that plenty of people who know more than you do disagree with that assessment.
Why? What would this accomplish? A warm fuzzy for you? Why should anyone else care if you’re satisfied ideologically? I can see why you might, but why should anyone else? When you say “we”, to whom do you refer? You and the mouse in your pocket?
If it were conclusively proven that the most efficient and effective model were a federal one, would you support an amendment to the constitution granting the federal government that power?