I would have to conclude that Canada, a country with UHC and other large government programs** IS NOT** right this very minute experiencing any long-term difficulties that are the results of big government.
Growth - greater than expected
Unemployment - better than the US
Currency - rising
I would further say (as others have) that it is really difficult to parse the effects on the economy of having a UHC versus having a different system. The economy of a country is far too complex a system for us to make the simplistic statement I quoted above.
I think the U.K. might fit that pretty well, though with the NHS so old, figures aren’t really relevant. Being a doctor is still a popular career choice. There’s private healthcare as well. We do get health tourists, alas, but you can go to any doctor’s surgery if you need treatment.
UHC makes sense. It’s just a question of the level of healthcare provided.
Christ. There are 33 million communists north of you that have managed quiet nicely to setup and run UHC at the provincial level with federal standards without being reduced to stick swinging savagery in a socialism induced hell hole.
Honestly, if you can’t (or choose not to) figure out how to do it fine but stop claiming it as some sort of ideological victory.
Yes you can. Even better if you are under employed. And you can afford it too. Got a cite for so many Europeans flocking to America for health care? Why do so many Americans travell abroad for medical treatment ?
Thanks for the response - a lot more cogent than Babale’s.
For this one, there are two possibilities. We are either finding real diseases and disorders that the Europeans are missing, or we are spending money of phantom diseases and disorders that don’t exist in Europe. If the former, we should be seeing better outcomes here since the undiagnosed diseases should kill some people early. We aren’t, so we must be seeing the latter. That’s reasonable, since the drug companies have an incentive to create the perception of illness (like that scourge of mankind, restless leg syndrome) to sell pills. If I understand correctly drug companies can’t advertise in Europe (I saw none while I was there) so that could cut down on unnecessary medication. What is the purpose of advertising prescription medicine to consumers anyway? So, score one for UHC, or a tie at least.
Assuming you are right about the obesity problem (and I think you are, I’m not bothering to check) obesity is a public health problem, a serious one. The current US free market system is not doing a good job on this one, is it? The drug industry has nothing to stop the problem, so they are not to blame. The food and fast food industry has segments making money off of the obese, so they are making it worse, and since diet plans are not regulated, quack ones can rake in money and not help solve the problem. The government doesn’t have that much incentive to do anything either. If the government were paying, wouldn’t there be more incentive to do things like force restaurants to post calorie counts in large friendly letters, remove junk from schools, and maybe even ban nasty fats?
How does the UK do it? it is not like English food is fundamentally healthier than ours.
Given that there is only so much you can pay, even if you are rich, and the small number of the rich, I doubt this has a lot of impact. I don’t care how much Bill Gates is willing to pay for health care - if he doesn’t get sick, he doesn’t affect the numbers. He can also easily self-insure himself, though he is probably still covered under the Microsoft plan.
That’s true, but we can only measure outcomes. I don’t think Americans are more satisfied with their system than Europeans. The exceptionalist argument - what is. is, because we are different somehow, can argue for anything. But even assuming our situation is a bit different, is it different enough to warrant spending huge chunks of GDP as indicated by my cite?
Yes, especially since abortion is prohibited meaning that those girls are not being attended to in legitimate clinics. So if you want to speak of medical care in México, please educate yourself before making such absurd statements.
Everyone was so shocked by the absurd claim that unemployment benefits go on forever that they missed this. Even before the recession, productivity growth in the past decade all went to the rich, with average salary increases not keeping up with inflation. People were encourage - by conservative reduction of interest rates - to borrow for consumption. Thus, the increase in debt and lack of savings. All part and parcel of the political philosophy that is against UHC. Though, since you bemoan deficits, I trust you agree that Reagan and Bush, who ran up big deficits in times of prosperity, are mostly responsible.
And if you think that anyone can go out and find a job, you should really read a newspaper some time.
You can also include a further 25 million in the south western corner in the duck pond off the coast of California, who could justifiably claim to be doing even better in the economics stakes for even longer, burden of Medicare UHC notwithstanding.
Whats wrong with the argument? A country that spends 17% of GDP on health care cannot compete with one that spends 10% of GDP on health care. The reason is that the second country has an extra 7% of GDP to spend on other investments.
If we could cover everyone for 11% of GDP (which is high, most OECD nations spend 8-11%), that would free up about $900 billion a year. We could fund our entire military (about $700 billion) or our entire educational system (about $900 billion).
So the choice is US healthcare or French healthcare & free education or military (pick one). We can’t compete since we have to waste so much national wealth on a health care system that doesn’t work any better (and by many standards are worse) than the systems in Canada, Japan, Germany, etc.
Then you have all the companies who can set up shop here (and spend $9000 for a family policy for a worker) or go to Canada or Germany and spend $3000 because their insurance is cheaper and costs aren’t all dumped on employers.
Our health care system is destroying our economy.
A big reason it is an argument for UHC is that countries with UHC have an incentive to provide the highest quality care for the lowest cost. Private health care in the US is incentivized to provide the most expensive care possible. Lipitor is the best selling drug in the US, it costs about $60/month. There are several statins that can be bought generic for $2 to $30 a month instead of Lipitor. But the more Lipitor that sells, the better off companies do.
The incentive system of a system like ours leads to a bloated, inefficient system. That is an argument for UHC, because a UHC system has an incentive to promote the highest quality/lowest cost care whereas ours tries to provide the most expensive care.
Do you have any evidence of this? If anything you’d expect the opposite. Because of unreliable primary care and fear of being labeled with a ‘pre-existing condition’ we have incentivized people to avoid being properly diagnosed. A proper diagnosis can be used as a technicality 10 years later to deny you health insurance. People know this. That is not a fear people in Europe have.
Obesity rates are high in Canada, Germany & the UK also. They still spend far far less on health care.
Not only that, but obesity rates vary drastically by state. However the Northeast has among the lowest obesity rates, but the highest health care expenses.
I would love a 2 tiered health care system. I’d take a Kia health care system over no health care. However it is not easy to separate the system out like that. You can do it with pharmaceuticals (pick generics and shop around) or elective procedures, but its not as easy with things like emergency care. Given the choice between no health care and 1994 level health care (excluding the last 16 years of advances) I’d pick 1994 health care. However we don’t have a 2 tiered system. We have outsourcing for elective surgery (going to Mexico, India, etc) and we have pharmaceutical shopping. But combined those 2 things probably only make up 20-30% of health spending.
The opposite is also true: some happily married couples are finding themselves having to divorce simply in order to keep some level of health care access for their children. Case in point:
I’d be willing to bet they don’t WANT to leave to get health care, I’m sure they’d much rather get it closer to home, but they can’t afford it. Doesn’t do much good to have “the best health care in the world” if one can’t afford it. My mother spent ten years in pain from a crushed vertebra in her neck, gradually losing the use of her right arm, because her insurance company wouldn’t let her get it diagnosed and treated, and they decided that six months of physiotherapy was enough for anybody, surely she couldn’t possibly still be in pain after that.
That a university professor making a decent salary, and a customer of a major health insurance company, couldn’t get a crushed vertebra diagnosed and treated for TEN YEARS is nothing short of appalling. Not until she was completely disabled and on Medicare could she get the diagnosis and surgery she needed to reduce her pain and try and get the use of her arm back, by which time she had racked up so many medical bills that her insurance would not cover, that she was nearly bankrupt and being harassed on a daily basis by debt collectors who screamed at her for not paying her bills, and who said in nearly so many words that she should have died rather than go to the doctor if she couldn’t pay for it. People should not have to descend into poverty in order to get access to health care. And they should not descend into poverty in the first place simply due to a lack of access to health care.
The very first thing that needs to happen in health care reform, in my opinion, is that insurance companies need to be taken to task, firmly regulated and forced to stop taking advantage of people at the cost of their health and wellbeing.
What world do you live in, in which unemployment benefits last forever? In my experience, they are based on the income you’ve earned and the length of time you’ve worked leading up to the point at which you lost your job, and they are granted for a set period of time based on these criteria, not indefinitely.
