Never actually read the poem, did you?
That may be, but in other OECD nations people are also protected from the cost of care and those nations give everyone high quality care for around $4000 per capita vs. the $7000 we spend here.
So if being insulated from the cost of care is the reason, why hasn’t the price shot up in other nations where the consumer is insulated? I don’t know of any wealthy OECD nations (maybe Ireland) where the consumer isn’t insulated from the cost of health care.
And if he would like to do so: The Last Decalogue
Not at all. If a person walks off a cliff, I’m not to blame for not building a tall enough fence along the cliff.
Money is a record of how much you have given back to society. People literally go around looking at all the things offered, choosing which of it is of value to them, and deciding of how much value that is compared to what they contribute themselves.
A person who doesn’t have much money, doesn’t have it because he doesn’t help anyone. Everyone who joins in, works hard, figures out new and interesting ways to make the world a better place, gets to receive the benefits of being part of the team.
There’s no one keeping anyone from joining in. In fact, everyone would rather they did. But they abstained, saying that they didn’t want to contribute, even if it meant that they were screwing themselves over.
So now this person who has decided to go off and screw himself, throw himself off a cliff, I’m not in any way responsible for what he gets for having made that decision. I want him to come and add to society. I’d help him to do it. But I’m not going to run his life for him, and I’m not going to prevent him from choosing to kill himself.
Health care isn’t so expensive that a person who works at a meager job can’t afford it by himself. In fact we have a thing called a minimum wage just to make sure that this is so–that a person who does contribute to society is making enough that he can take care of himself. But if he chooses to spend that money on alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, a giant sound system, a TV, to not have to live with three others, or whatever, that’s his choice. He could spend that money on health care, but if he chooses not to, well hey, he’s jumping off that cliff all on his own.
Now if you want to mandate that a person can’t buy cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets, sounds systems, or any other electronics or non-necessities before he has seen to paying for all of the necessities he does need–according to you–then sure let’s do that. But I think you’ll find that it won’t be a popular policy.
Look, I have some sympathy for your argument that the free-market can sustain all manner of evil. But the problem is that the market has to be healthy in order to be able to AFFORD the healthcare you believe everyone deserves. If we dropped everything in order give people healthcare then there would be no one building the ambulances to take them to the hospital. If there was no one making movies there would be nothing for you to watch at the hospital while you recovered. If no one made Ramen Noodles, you’d have to eat the godawful food from the hospital Cafeteria. All of these things are brought to you by ‘the market’. So while I agree with you that the free-market isn’t holy or sacrosanct, there is an economic reality that underlies our ability to provide medical care.
I’ve seen a lot of parents be all " MY kid needs the BEST medical care"
For example. There is a device called the coachlear implant. The latest “trend” is to do dual implants…even thou the benifits from a second one aren’t as drastic. (sound localizaton, and better hearing in noise basicly) Now a second one is a good idea if you can’t get sound localization with a heaing aid. But most people can. Yet there are kids being implanted who even have some speech perception in their unimplanted ear!!!
Yes, its not as good as having a CI, But at least your kid is getting SOME speech perception.
I also saw a parent on a dhh (deaf and hard of hearing messageboard) whining that she had to pay to upgrade her pweshius wittle boy’s implants. The son was doing awesome with his current implants…no real reason to upgrade. AND she was whining about how it cost so much to make her son “normal!”
(and it does seem like a lot of the pro bilateral implanters are the AG Bell types who HAVE to have the latest hearing technology when it comes out)
And the private system is really screwed up. I am hard of hearing. My hearing loss responds well to hearing aids. Yet my parents insurance didn’t cover it at all. HOWEVER, it did cover something called an atresia repair. No matter that the end results from atresia repair are very hit or miss (some people throw their hearing aids away, most others don’t)
It’s still covered. It seems that the insurance companies would save a lot more if they covered BTE (behind the ear) hearing aids, then paying out for atresia repair or CIs (and I know a lot of people who have worn those VERY tiny canal aids despite having only a moderate or severe loss so they could qualify)
You’re absolutely right that most people are not concerned in the least about cost to society when $ is taken out of the equation. But that’s not the only consideration, is it? How many of your 75,000 to 100,000 people, when they learned that test X was completely covered under insurance or procedure Y would cost them no money, or hooking grandpa up to tubes A, B and C may possibly prolong his already comatose life by another few months and they simply said “no. No more. I’m done with tests/procedures/medicines. I’m simply done.” Altruism doesn’t enter into it.
Likewise, what percentage of people eat a normal, healthy meal at the buffet despite it costing them absolutely nothing to go back for thirds, fourths and fifths merely because they can? Cost is only one concern here.
I don’t read poetry; so I googled it up to see what arguments it was being used to defend.
And did I say otherwise? We don’t live in a black and white world where the only options are “let the weak perish” and “destroy the economy so everyone starves”. Oddly enough, other countries manage to provide health care for everyone and survive just fine.
Oh, garbage. People can be lacking in money due to all sorts of reasons besides that. Such as, for example, having to spend it all on health care.
:rolleyes: Oh, please. Most of the time, the people in charge take the vast majority of of the rewards; the people who did the work get crumbs.
Utter nonsense. Even quite well off people can lose everything to the costs of health care; much less someone with a “meager job”.
Translation: We’ll pretend that he’s living in the lap of luxury instead of in a bare apartment on food stamps, so we can feel noble when we condemn him to death. We prey upon the weak, patting ourselves on the back for our moral superiority the whole time.
Yeah, and let’s make them eat maggot infested gruel too. Because after all, the poor are evil. We need to make them suffer.
Personally don’t have much to add - just think as a general matter it is polite to check back into threads one begins! 
I guess I sort of favor a two (or more) tiered scheme, where public benefits provides everyone some level of basic services, while folk who can afford to purchase more extensive coverage. In my mind, if you cannot personally afford it, you are not provided a whole list of services. I imagine where many folk would differ would concern the listing of what services were universally provided.
I acknowledge that my position might well be criticized as reflecting my position of relative advantage in terms of wealth and health.
So when we can afford it? You are dodging an important and necessary question: what level of care is reasonable, are you “entitled to”? So anything short of spending every possible resource to save every possible live is murder? Unless we spend 90% of the GDP on healthcare (the other 10% going to food, shelter, etc.) then it’s murder? You can’t see how ludicrous your position is? There is a finite amount of resources: the line has to be drawn somewhere.
The free market isn’t happy with anything. Being a system to organize an economy, it feels nothing Der. No need to anthropomorphize the system to villanize it; I get it, you get a hard on about hating on free markets.
So what level of healthcare is reasonable? How much should one person receive? Health care, as with every other resource, will be rationed. The best rationing system yet devised is the free market. You should get what you can pay for, or what your insurance plan covers. I’m of the opinion that a free market solution would be best: driving down prices and up competition to provide better service. Insurance should cover catastrophic care, and no more. You don’t except your care insurance to pay for preventative maintenance; health insurance should work in the same way. Regular checkups, immunizations, respiratory illnesses - things we can foresee occurring, should be paid for by the patient.
This begs the question: how much care should an insurance plan cover? The answer of course, is as much as it can and still be solvent.
If only there were other countries that had tried UHC so that we could look and see if they had lower costs and better outcomes.
Insurance is there if you need it, but it is not intended to be used. Practically speaking: one doesn’t buy car insurance in order to get into an accident, and one doesn’t buy house insurance in order to burn down one’s home. This, to me, is the core problem with health insurance. Apart from catastrophe insurance, health insurance is meant to be used. What kind of crappy insurance market is that? Health care is too expensive, so I will buy insurance and make claims against it?
In my opinion, no health care insurance plan can do anything but be enormously wasteful. You cannot insure eventualities.
Well, that’s the problem. The poem’s an attack, not a defense.
Now this is where are problem now lies. I don’t mean this as a rap on the OP 'cause it’s good the question was brought up, but the whole point should be to take care of not some but ALL preventative care.
If you pay $75/year for a doctor visit to get a $4.00/month prescription for blood pressure or cholesterol lowering drugs, you can prevent a hundred grand for a heart attack.
But not in America. We’ll treat the heart attack but not the 'causes before it happens.
Also many elderly people have problems with teeth which aren’t covered or if they are covered are limited to $1,000/year which is nothing.
Restorative dental care would go a long way in helping people lead better more productive lives.
I believe health care, should be like fire or police service, a matter of public policy.
All except strictly cosmetic procedures should be covered. And by that I mean the BEST way to fix something to restore it.
I agree.
I totally disagree. This is pointlessly wasteful. Not to put too fine a point on it, but people die anyway. Resources should be primarily devoted to the living who are gathering or about to gather those resources, only secondarily to the living that just happen to be living, and a distant third to those who are only living because we’re giving them resources. Investing in health care for the elderly, frankly, is not particularly wise. If it makes you feel good, you do it. Don’t make me do it. I’ll happily pay for your child, but paying thousands of dollars for some member of the silent generation to squeak out another five years of social security that I am also paying is practically offensive to me.
Health care should be the same for everybody in the country. Then you would see the cost and quality of care being seriously dealt with. As long as the rich and the politicians are taken care of they have no incentive to fix it. The constituents that really matter have no problem with health care. We have to make it their problem too.
C’mon. Who can’t afford $75 a year and $4 per month for a prescription? Are you suggesting that people are having heart attacks because they can’t afford that small amount? My guess is that, with or without insurance, many people simply do not get needed checkups.
So you don’t believe that getting government money should come with some strings? I assume you were not complaining when the bank execs at all those bailed out companies gave themselves bonuses.
If people are receiving care at the expense of the government then why not dictate what they can and cannot do?
We don’t do that with social security. SS is the biggest wealth redistribution project in the US.
It’s also a system that everyone who receives benefits have paid into. There are the strings.