Relatively Price of Health Care

-Free specifically preventing care, that people are encouraged to use. For instance, I can get a free complete check up every… i don’t remember how often…, this scheme being organized by the public insurance system. Same with various specific medical risks, like some forms of cancers for people above a certain age, etc… with regular campaigns.

-Simply the quite low or unexisting cost of seeing a doctor, encouraging people to visit long before they’re on the verge of dying.

-Probably, I suspect, the fact that the poor will see a family doctor nevertheless who follows them and is more interested and familiar with their general health than the medical staff in an hospital emergency service, whose job is to treat…well… emergencies, and to take care of the immediate issue, not to follow you up.

Whilst I agree that you in the US seem to have big problems with healthcare, you do also need to be aware of other issues, because these are certainly likely to be raised by those in favour of your healthcare system.

It will raise taxes, significantly - The amount of unmet demand has not yet been measured, and its not in the interest of anyone to do so, because if the antis did so then it would possibly demonstrate an urgent need for universal healthcare, and if the pros did it, this data could then be used to show just how expensive it would be in the first few years.

Unmet demand would swamp your system, you would end up with the worst of all worlds, because you would have to queue for medical treatment, costs would efinately rise far higher than originaly estimated, taxes would go up, and healthcare would become a political plaything.

When we in the UK set up our National Health Service, the amount of demand was wildly underestimated and as a result it took a couple of decades to get some sort of control.

Rationing, its not a nice word to use in the context of healthcare, but the fact is that when it comes out of the public purse the costs of some treatments versus their efficacy have to be balanced, do you spend $$$$$$ to keep one elderly person alive for one year, or spend the same on treating a child with luekaemia who may well only live the same length of time ?

Priorities, given that there is a large unmet demand and there is a finite amount of money to spend, someone will end up waiting for an operation, one surgeon can only do so much work, and this also depends upon things like blood supplies, availability of specialist nursing and physiotherapy, and possibly also home social workers to rehabilitate you, so that even if finance is available it takes years to train the staff needed to meet this demand - the queues will get longer.

on the other hand.

The whole raft of companies that thrive off the back of medical insurance in a privtely funded system leads to extra layers of cost, and in common with other forms of insurance such as in the motor vehicle market, there is always a huge incentive from the supplier of services to find ways to inflate the cost, and since all the insurer needs to do is raise premiums, there is are the control measures you would expect in private industry.

The costs of a medical episode in terms of the economy are not confined just to the patient, relatives will be involved, production may be lost until there is a return to work, which of itself raises issues of stand in staff, retraining etc.

Companies end up paying a large amount toward medical insurance directly, individuals may or not pay towards this, but in the end it places more of the burden fo such costs onto companies, whereas in the universal scheme, more of the cost comes out of taxes the individual pays.

Medical insurance contributes to labour force inflexibility, employees find it difficult to move from one employer to another due to the way many medical insurance contracts are arranged, it may be that you can’t overlap two policies, or that someone your policy covers in in the middle of a program of treatment which means effectively you can’t transfer to another employer who has a contract with a differant insurer.

Its grossly unjust, every person has a right to life, and every person has a right to the benefits of the fruits of the nation, why should someone who works plenty hard as a sewer worker not have access for themselves and their family when compared to, say, a highly paid computer programmer, do they not feel the same pain ?

In the UK we do have private medical care, its a tiny sector compared to the public system, but if you have the money then you can opt for it, it is not forbidden, but often, when complications arise from treatment and surgery, as happens in all medical practice, those same private patients are very often left to rely on the greater resources of the public system.

There are a large number of individuals and companies with ahuge interest in keeping US healthcare private, and to their end they have the influence and power to ensure that any problems in Nationalised Healthcare systems are widely publicised, but the mere fact that a significant percentage of your population has only access to emergency care and little else, and that so many bankrucies are because of medical costs - something that could happen to almost any American - should show you the lie to all this, think about the sums involved here, how much is 14% or your national budget ? An appreciation of such numbers would help you nderstand why there is a good deal of opposition to Nationalisation of US healthcare, a lot of people make a very large amount, they are not about to give up on that gravy train.

Not mentionning that you can choose your doctor too with a public health care system. Actually, it seems I’ve much more freedom of choice than the average american, since there’s no insurance telling me which doctors I can see if I want to be covered.

Well… there are limitations, since some doctors, especially specialists charge more than what is reimbursed than the healthcare system, and some rare doctors are even completely outside this system. So, in these cases I will have to pay from my own pocket, but of course I can have (actually I do have) a complementary insurance covering this overcost (and i’m yet to see one such insurance coming up with a list of doctors I can/cannot see). But anyway, the wide majority of generalists just charge the “official rate” so it’s generally not an issue.

Where are you from? I must say that I too would absolutely want to be able to choose my doctor. Especially since I’m very picky regarding medical practitionners.

i’m going to try again to ask a question that intrigues me : assuming that the USA would implement a public healthcare system, what would happen to the existing insurance companies, to their employees, etc???

I’m all for National Health Care, but even I have thought of this. I would assume that insurers would insure something else. Some would fold, but that’s the American Way. American companies don’t seem to care about their employees; only the stockholders. Witness outsourcing. At least with NHC, the displaced workers will still have health coverage; which is more than can be said in the current situation.

I don’t think so. I think that any US national health plan would largely be written by today’s insurers and their interests would be well protected. I suspect it would be a government program andministered by the insurers with a guarantee that would indemnify them against loss. At least that’s the way the drug program went.

I think being able to choose doctors is overrated. Sure, if there is a personality conflict you should be able to switch. However we choose a doctor from among those available to us in our area, and that is a limited number for most of us.

I’ve also noticed that once people choose, that doctor immediately becomes “the best man in the business.”

Obviously we should continue looking at the difference between private and public systems, but I don’t think the effect of stress and geography should be ignored. It’s my understanding that Americans work longer weeks, take fewer vacation days, and commute further by car than their European counterparts. This can lead to:
[ul]
[li]Increased stress, blood pressure, etc.[/li][li]Less incidental exercise during commute[/li][li]Less time to exercise, prepare fresh meals and seek out preventative care[/li][li]Less convenient to get to fresh food, gym, doctor’s office[/li][/ul]

I have insurance and I live in the U.S. If I’m sick and I go to the doctor, I pay a $15 copay, and if I use generic drugs, I get them pretty cheaply also, say another $15 dollars. If there is no generic version of the drug, I pay half price, which can be extremely expensive. Also, when getting any sort of lab work done, or being referred to a specialist, I have noted wildly varying prices (I’ve even had to pay full price for lab work before, and I have “good” insurance). In other words, a person who isn’t well off is playing a game of “invoice roulette” if they go to their doctor for anything.

Approximately 16% of the American public is uninsured for any entire year. The problem is that that doesn’t measure people who are without insurance for parts of a year. That number is approximately 25% or more in any year, depending on the state of the economy. Source. It should also be noted that levels of healthcare vary drastically in this country, so even some of those who are insured can’t afford to visit the doctor, as high deductibles and the like make even a single visit too expensive except in emergencies. I work for a company that offers health-care, for example, but use private insurance instead, as the companies offering has a maximum coverage amount of $15K per year (that’s coverage, not out of pocket), and that’s their best offering.