I already explained several times, I’m one of the people who doesn’t pay anything for health care. So, forcing UHC on me is more expensive to me. I’m one of the people who will be subsidizing everyone else. Does that make sense?
I’m okay with rationing health care, or having a tiered system where poor people pay less. But they should receive a lower tier level of care.
If UHC cannot deny coverage and if it cannot use less expensive alternatives because the patient will always demand the best, then UHC won’t work.
Imagine you slip and fall and hit your head (or get whacked in the head accidentally by a friend or whatever). You are rushed to the hospital and require brain surgery (and do not think this is not possible…actress Natasha Richardson took a seemingly minor blow to the head and even thought she was fine till she dropped dead several hours later).
Brain surgery and the attendant hospital stay can easily hit $200,000+ (can go waaaay higher depending on many things). Can you just write a check for all that on the spot? If you can’t then you are making me pay for your surgery because apparently you are uninsured (if you are insured and someone else is picking up 100% of the tab then nothing would change for you under UHC).
If you can write a check for that then count yourself lucky and only one of a very tiny minority who could do so.
Yes, I will pay for any and all medical expenses I personally incur. I don’t want to pay for any and all medical expenses you incur. I don’t know how much clearer I can make that.
You already pay for other people’s medical expenses right now. UHC will lower that cost to you.
Please explain the mechanism to determine who is able to pay as they are wheeled unconscious into the Emergency Room. Tell me what you do with those deemed unable to pay.
Also tell me about how you view a country when the front of hospitals are littered with bleeding, diseased and dying people who the hospital literally kicked to the curb as soon as it was determined they had no ability to pay (and realize that will include some 5.5 million children).
I don’t go to hospitals and I’m all for UHC if it doesn’t raise costs to me.
I paid a grand total of $60 in property taxes last year to the county hospital. Are you saying UHC will lower my cost? If we can guarantee it will never cost me more than $60 per year, then I’m all for it. Please give a detailed explanation of how your UHC plan can pay everyone’s medical expenses with only this money and no additional taxes or deficit spending.
As for the unfortunate poor, there’s plenty of heartbreaking stories if you look hard enough. Why stop at medical care? If it only costs me $60, I’ll gladly give another $60 to end all human suffering.
Note “substantially more”. So, UHC is paid for with some left over. Costs go down so it will cost less to run your county hospital and (if the government actually lowered the taxes…likely they’d just keep it where it is) you’d pay less. At the least you’d pay no more.
ETA: Add in other benefits. Some 60% or more of bankruptcies are due to medical costs (and most of those are to working people with health insurance). No more bankruptcies means more money in company coffers which means higher profits and/or lower costs for goods and services.
So was the CBO lying when it said that Obamacare would cost half a trillion now, and another trillion over ten years?
But since UHC is free, then any tax increases can be removed from the final bill, and all expenses covered with administrative savings. As soon as the Democrats and Obama come up with such a bill, I would be glad to support it.
So nobody will pay for the care of folks who would otherwise go bankrupt? Or is this the Magic Tax Fairy who comes up with invisible money again?
That is to say, you won’t be reducing costs even a tiny bit - just sending the bill to a different place.
Will you send me all the money you save if it does save you money? Include improved profits earned by stocks when company’s overhead costs go down and their stocks perform better or they can invest more into improvements and so on.
Basically make it a neutral proposition for you. You have no downside or upside.
And I note yet again you bring absolutely zero facts or evidence to the discussion but seek to use smoke and mirror rhetoric.
The difference is the bit I quoted assumes we would get efficiencies akin to what Canada enjoys. Canada has a single-payer system. The US is not proposing a single payer system. Point is such savings ARE there and could be achieved. Just everyone screams Socialism so we are not going to see that efficiency.
Yes, gladly. If my property tax payment to the county hospital goes down, I’ll send you the difference, up to $60 per year. I don’t know how you’d calculate these improved profits, but I don’t own any stocks so that’s going to be $0. Shall I draw up a contract and send it over to you to sign?
p.s. I linked to facts earlier in this thread. Do you need me to point them out for you, or do you have a bad understanding of what “zero facts” means?
I saw you provide one link…to something that had already been debunked.
And if the whole economy improves seems to me you would benefit. How you would determine what amount benefited you due to health care reform I don’t know. Presumably some economist report that determines some percentage.
And till I see the UHC bill that gets passed (if it gets passed) I cannot say anything about whether it will work or not. Quite possible Congress will bumble it. The point however is that is is possible to save a great deal of money via UHC done right. Every industrialized nation in the world offers UHC, all of them cost far less than health care in the US and all of them provide for better overall health outcomes for its citizens. How many more examples do you need? Our system is provably a mess. It is self evident. Other country’s UHC systems are provably less expensive. Also self evident.
Not sure how you or others assume if we cut health care costs in half in the US (which would still leave us as the most expensive or nearly so) it is going to cost you more money to live than it did previously.
We are talking about whether UHC can save us money. It CAN save us money. The proof is in every industrialized nation in the world with UHC spending half or less than we do for better health care than we get overall. Canada is an illustrative example. Not pie-in-the-sky maybe we think kinda there might be a saving there. A whole country is running it and has those savings. If (note “if”) we moved to a single payer system why would we suppose things would get more expensive?
I imagine this is largely due to the language barrier & differences in hospital cultures, not because Taiwan’s doctors are bad doctors. And US policy on allowing Taiwanese to practice is almost certainly not because Taiwan went to socialized medicine. I don’t think they had to start giving licenses to the unqualified just to meet demand.
But in the USA, unqualified doctors do practice. Not only are there the frauds with fake M.D.'s, there are chiropractors who try to prescribe medicine (which is beyond their training), there are herb-sellers who don’t know what they’re selling & believe everything in the advertising brochures, and there are the iridologists, the faith healers, the homeopaths, & other quacks. But hey, they’re sometimes cheaper than allopathic medicine, so they get customers!
We need to invest in training more actual physicians & nurses, & subsidize their tuition. But the salutary effects of that will be felt five years after we start. In the interim, trimming health insurance may relieve some pain.
We also may need more competition in medical labs. I would like to see some grants in that direction.
One of the biggest arguments for single payer is that it helps small business, the self-employed, & entrepreneurs! If the present bill doesn’t do that, then throw it out & just make Medicare opt-in!