What’s your explanation for the fact that the unemployment rate in Canada is currently better than that in the US then? Do you think this is merely an anomoly in the horrible “permanent unemployment” that Canada has?
How do you account for the fact that from 1995 to 2004, the gap in unemployment rates between the countries was reduced from 4.2 percentage points to 1.7 percentage points, and currently has been tipped on its head at 1.4 percentage points in Canada’s favor? A comparison in unemployment rates has been moving in Canada’s favor for 15 years.
That’s some “permanent unemployment” there Jack.
Bottom line: Your statement that
Terrible? So terrible that our death rates are lower than those in France, Japan, the UK, Austria, Denmark, and Germany, among many others? Besides, 37th place is terrible? Last time I checked, there were about 200 countries in the world. Why don’t you go explain how terrible our health care is to any of the 163 countries that have health care worse than us?
Most of the examples above don’t work, since the police, the military, and the interstate are all things that HAVE to be controlled by the government. Sure, we could have a private army, but would it be the US army? Meat inspectors? Well, the USA sets the rules, so who else would inspect? And as for fire departments, some suburban areas have private firefighting forces, where the fire fighters get paid better and generally spend less time on wasteful tasks. A man tripped down the stairs and needs an ambulance? Great, why did you send a fire truck along, too?
And government incentives always work, right?
The current bill is not the final goal of many of the liberals currently in office. It’s a compromise. I should HOPE it is compromised, and not exactly what one side wants.
Unemployment is temporary. The money they give is designed as a fraction of their original pay so that the unemployed can still pay rent and not become homeless. Which if you had bothered to think about it before forming your opinion, would make it very hard to get a new job.
Because you don’t understand the issue.
I have no idea.
Unemployment is temporary. You really don’t have a strong understanding of this issue. Maybe you should take the time to educate yourself before bloviating?
Oh, and I find your argument that American’s are too fat and inherently sick to ever have better health outcomes… is foolish, and insulting to your fellow Americans.
Besides, this thread is about your contention that countries with UHC are currently suffering economically from this decision to offer health care to all their citizens. You made this contention, now prove it.
Except that currently, the government is paying TOO MUCH. Had you bothered to read my post, you would have seen that my problem is with people getting paid more for sitting at home and going to their local government office once a week then the minimum wage.
Yours is simply an American Exceptionalism argument for the impossibility of UHC working in your country:
“oh but we’re simply too exceptionally fat and have such exceptionally poor diets, that’s why we’re unhealthy! That’s why countries with UHC have better health outcomes! Other countries must just be naturally healthier!”
I was focusing more on the 50 million uninsured. Which is simply made more shocking against the backdrop of america being the country that spends the most as a proportion of GDP.
As for arguments about people paying more for “BMW” healthcare, this is an unfair analogy.
While it’s true that we probably have to wait longer to get treatment for minor conditions, it’s also true that many of those receiving no treatment right now in the US have conditions serious enough to warrant immediate care in the UK.
So it’s not better + more expensive vs cheaper + worse.
I work in neuroimaging here in London and the UK is one of the centres of excellence in this field (look on the US-based Pubmed how many papers in neuroimaging, both clinical and theoretical were authored in the UK – it’s a very high proportion).
And the frequency of patient scans is set by best clinical need, not by cost – I’ve never heard a neurologist say that they wish we could scan more people, if only we had more money.
In fact the “BMW” analogy is ironic in some ways – doctors more frequently prescribe branded meds instead of generics than just about any other country.
Which way is that? If the implication is that people with minor conditions needlessly clog up hospitals…then that is something that both models are vulnerable to.
When exactly did I ever say this? What I said was, American obesity problems are a lifestyle problem that no amount of free health care would solve. In fact, many obese children come from middle class families that CAN afford health care. It just happens that the parents would rather drop their kids off at McDonalds rather than cook at home. I am saying that obesity is unrelated to health care.
@Mijin: I am talking about how, when someone breaks their leg, they have to wait to get into the ER because hundreds of illegals are clogging up the ER with their coughs and runny noses, since they don’t have to pay until later. And guess what? When they don’t pay, taxpayers do.
Are you that uneducated that you don’t understand this? We’re the most powerful and wealthy country on Earth. Our GDP is nearly as much as the European Union.
Our GDP is higher than the 163 countries fucking combined!
Dude, honestly. You’re out of your depth here. Nothing against you, but I don’t think you’re up to this debate.
Okay, you have no problem with the USA setting rules for meat, because bad meat could kill people, right? Well no health care can kill people too. Jesus merciful fuck. :smack:
Incentives tend to work no matter who places them. It is the government’s role to provide incentives that are for the common good. It would be more profitable to cut hamburger with sawdust, but the government makes that illegal so that people don’t do that. Do you understand rudimentary economics?
UHC is more efficient than what we do. Thankfully we’re rich enough that even with the patchwork system that the Senate bill will give us we’ll be so much better off.
Of course they do. Reread my post about five times and see if you understand it then.
Okay, fine, I’ll spell it out again: Many people would live healthier lives if they knew how sick they were making themselves.
Okay, seriously, stop and think for a moment. I’ll paint you a picture:
Joe the Plumber loses his job. He made 2k a month. He paid 400 for various bills and 700 for rent. Okay? Got it?
He goes on unemployment. Under your bullshit idea he gets $700 (minimum wage). He loses his apartment and is homeless.
Under the status quo he gets $1200 a month. He pays his rent, doesn’t become homeless and can try to get another job. With his other bills he cuts back and eats a lot of top-ramen.
Surely, you can see that your proposal is stupid, right? We don’t want people going from middle class jobs to working at Mcdonalds. We want them to get another middle class job.
Trying to have an intelligent debate based on something Limbaugh said is like trying to have an intelligent debate based on the rantings of some Ayatollah in Iran. You can’t, people that dogmatic don’t care about facts or evidence or anything else that threatens the purity of their dogmas.
As far as other countries suffering from UHC, I have seen no evidence of this. But in the US we suffer extremely due to variety of reasons.
In the US private employers pick up much of health expenditures, which puts us at a disadvantage to countries where employers do not pay as much (both because a lower % of GDP goes to health and because the costs are spread more evenly in society and not so heavily on business owners).
We are now spending 17% of GDP on health care (vs 8-11% in other OECD nations). That means we have 6-9% of GDP that could be going to education, infrastructure, R&D, investments, etc. that is going to a bloated, wasteful health care system. An extra trillion dollars a year could come in handy right about now. If we were spending 10% of GDP on health care (which is what France, Germany & Canada do for their decent systems) we’d have an extra trillion a year that could be reinvested in better things.
People are locked into jobs they do not like because they fear losing their coverage. This cuts productivity. Another cut to productivity comes from people getting sick who might not have been as sick had they had primary care.
Bankruptcies are due largely to health care. So are foreclosures. The economic collapse was brought on by large scale foreclosures. They were due to bad loans, but health care being a major issue in foreclosure contributed to making the problem worse.
The large scale insecurity can’t be good for us.
Our health care system systematically dehumanizes us. People stay in miserable marriages to keep their health care, people get married solely for health care, people have to fight tooth and nail for treatment when sick. Our system systemically degrades and dehumanizes us, which arguably affects how we think of ourselves and each other.
There is no logical argument anywhere for why we have a good health care system or why any developed nation would emulate ours. Slightly shorter wait times for some elective procedures? Possibly, but that is about it. The only arguments are based on puritanical dogmatic and wishful thinking and easily fall apart under scrutiny.
We have an expensive, inefficient, dehumanizing, unreliable system. It cuts our international competitiveness, wastes tons of GDP, dehumanizes people, cuts productivity and slows economic growth.
We are an economy driven by consumer demand. However medical problems constantly bankrupt people and cause them to go into bankruptcy and lose their homes. When the financial system uses homes as collateral, and when consumer demand is used to prop up the economy, a health care system that is driving millions into foreclosure and bankruptcy cannot stand.
The concept that a nation that spends 10% of GDP on a health care system that people generally like is unsustainable while a nation that spends 17% (and growing, expected to be 20% by 2020) of GDP on a health care system that cuts productivity, quality of life, international competitiveness and economic growth is too absurd to deserve a serious response.
But sadly the right wing in the US is so entrenched that even their factually incorrect radical dogmas are treated as serious beliefs. This is 1984 and there is no valid argument.
First of all, I see no needs for all the personal attacks you have made so far. I haven’t made any; why did you have to?
Well, that makes sense, except that on a per capita basis, the US is not first. Still, minor nitpick. I am not saying that the US shouldn’t have better health care. I AM saying that UHC is NOT the way to better health care.
First, I’d appreciate it if we kept swearing out of this debate. I’ve refrained from doing so, you can too. Anyways, meat is something that people buy. The government then insures that the companies who sell the meat are not cheating their costumers. How on earth are you comparing this to health care? Lightning can kill people, too. Should the government regulate lightning?
Making something illegal is NOT an incentive. It’s a law. In order for the so called incentives to become a doctor to be equal to your example, there would have to be a law stating that the government can choose certain people who will then be forced to become doctors. I don’t think anyone wants to live in a society like that.
We are rich enough? Is that why we have a deficit of over one trillion dollars and are in debt for over 14 TRILLION dollars? That’s about 2300 dollars for every human being on the planet! Of course, the way to make debt go away is to spend more, right?
Which europeans come here? Do you have stats on how many come here?
In 2010 alone, 6 million americans are going to travel abroad for medical care. Many will go to Mexico, India, Thailand, etc.
So millions of people want to leave the US to get health care. Do you have evidence that millions want to come here for health care?
I can find evidence that millions of people who live here want to leave to get health care. But I have no idea how many want to come here.
Per capita, the number of doctors in OECD nations hovers in the 2-4 per 1,000 range. Compensation varies from country to country. So basically it doesn’t matter what you pay doctors. In the US, there are tons of people who’d like to be physicians but there aren’t enough residencies or med schools for them.
I don’t know if you can do that part though.
Many nations that have a public system also have private systems you can opt into if you want. So that is a common facet of many nation’s systems.
Do you abuse the police and fire department since they are funded via taxes?
So common sense and TV campaigns telling people how bad fatty foods are for them won’t do anything, but going to the doctor for free instead of paying for the visit will suddenly make people see the light?
You misinterpreted me, though perhaps I should have been clearer: I would get a temporary job until I could find new work at my level. And you know what? I get to keep my dignity. Now, as for your example, let’s break it down: With your example, JtP spends 1100 out of his 2000 salary. Let’s say he spends most of that money, say, 450 on food and other things. He’s left with 450 a month, which he puts in the bank. When he looses his job, he works for 700 a month, enough to pay his rent. He uses his savings to pay his other bills and buy food. If he sees that he isn’t getting a job fast enough, he downgrades his apartment, or gets a roommate to share costs with. Then he gets a new job and there we go, he survived his hard times.
Now, if he gets his 1200 a month, he pays his bills, keeps his apartment, and has enough to live on cheap food (which incidentally makes him obese). Now Joe is living from month to month, spends all of his government money, and relaxes at home, knowing that while he will never move up, he can leech off of the government permanently.
I don’t know about you, but I like my scenario better.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/19
In a Canadian National Population Health Survey of 17,276 Canadian residents, it was reported that only 0.5% sought medical care in the U.S. in the previous year. Of these, less than a quarter had traveled to the U.S. expressly to get that care.
A 2002 study by Katz, Cardiff, et al, reported the number of Canadians using U.S. services to be “barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home” and that the results “do not support the widespread perception that Canadian residents seek care extensively in the United States.”
Basically, almost no Canadians come here. But millions of us leave the US to get health care. And we aren’t leaving to go to Japan or Germany. We are leaving to go to developing nations like India or Mexico. So that really tells you something.
I don’t know the stats for western europeans coming here, but I’d assume it is similar to Canada’s stats (extremely low).
Anyway the argument people are making is that we have the best health system in the world and people come from all over to visit ours.
The reality is very few people come here to visit, and many leave to get health care elsewhere. Health care in a developing nation is better than no health care in the US.
Wesley Clark, I appreciate the civil and polite post. Although we disagree, you do not attack me, and I shall not attack you.
How many of those are teenagers who go to Mexico to get cheap abortions, and how many of those girls will get sick and even die because of it? You get what you pay for, after all. Don’t get me wrong, hospitals do charge way too much for certain medical procedures. But UHC is not the solution to that problem.
Alright, I’ll concede on this point. Although there is no way to judge the quality of doctors.
My point. I guarantee you that a comparison of the cost of med school will show that the US is more expensive. People may not go through the trouble of paying that much for a lower return.
And the person who is paying for private health care is paying both for his health care and for the increased taxes.
Bad comparison here-you can’t use those in the same way that you can use medical services.
Again, thanks for the polite post.
I’m not trying to attack you. I’m trying to let you know that you’re proposing gibberish.
But the countries that do have UHC do better for less money. Your argument has no evidence for it. It is purely ideological and based on your profound ignorance of the issues.
In my defense you’re arguing against someone who isn’t offering utter, irrational garbage as arguments.
Are you serious? Health Insurance is something people buy. Even your analogy is self destructive. This is laughable, except you appear to actually believe this nonsense.
In the name of Pete and his mighty reindeer, you are blurting gibberish.
No. Lucky for us that isn’t at all what we’re talking about. You are seriously misunderstanding everything you’re typing here. You need to do some basic groundwork on this subject before you start debating about it.
The government can offer some student loan forgiveness to doctors that become general practitioners. This is an incentive. Please. Please. Please. Think about stuff before you start typing.
Not all all. The Senate HC bill will lower the deficit.
Say it with me. The Senate HC bill will lower the deficit. Look up the CBO report if you care enough about facts to check up on it.
I know you think you had a zinger to end with there. But once again, you are not arguing in a rational manner. You need to do the basic education on this subject before you start arguing for things you believe that are not in fact true.
This is laughable, except you appear to actually believe this nonsense.