Then you were taught incorrectly. The dole is your right as an unemployed person with respect to the laws regarding unemployment. The tax you paid before becoming unemployed goes towards the system that pays out that dole money.
25% on almost everything here. We have two reduced rates for certain items. IIRC food is 12% and reading matter is 6%.
If that’s true, then why not simply legislate paperless hospitals and standard software? I’m skeptical that this sort of micromanagement will be that effective, but there’s no need to tie it in to national health care.
On a broader note, it seems to me that liberals have a tendency to be overly optimistic about how their ideas will work out. When things don’t work out as well as expected, they often make a True Scotsman type argument. e.g. “That wasn’t Real Gun Control” or “The money spent on Kansas City schools was spent stupidly”
In evaluating public policies, one should take it as a given that there will be a lot of stupidity, waste, mismanagement, manipulation by special interests, and so on. Which isn’t to say that the government should never provide services, of course.
My opinion only.
I used to program for a hospital system on their medical records systems. One of the problems with universal medical records is the cost of conversion. There are a ton of medical paper records out there, and typing or scanning them all into e-format is going to cost a lot of money and effort. IOW, implementing paperless records is going to cost a lot up front, and the benefits will trickle in over the next twenty years or so. Not necessarily an argument that it shouldn’t happen, just that it will not reduce costs in the short term.
OK, could you please produce a cite showing a strong correlation between increased spending on education in the US and improving test scores? No Child Left Behind seems to have cost a fair amount of money - would you agree that it paid for itself with improved vaccination rates?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Shodan
News flash–Healthcare does not respond to market forces. Private companies can and will charge extra simply because they can–who’s going to forego that heart transplant because of the cost? So yes, the government can do it more efficiently and with less cost, because healthcare is one of the few markets where the wants of the customers and the wants of the private companies are directly at odds with each other. A sick person can’t easily vote with their wallet, as they would do in most other industries, because the alternative may well be death.
I’m generally not opposed to a free market approach to things, but there are some things which it does not handle well.
You see all those people who can’t afford care? The ones with chronic conditions they can’t get treated for until something disastrous happens? The ones who go bankrupt from medical bills? The people who have to fight with their insurance companies to get the coverage they’re paying for? The private system is failing miserably. The US is a hallmark of how not to manage healthcare to other first world countries. If the current system really worked, don’t you think other countries would be trying to emulate it instead?
Well, in this thread you’ve got curlcoat & brazil84 on your side! Most of us can make pretty good guesses.
(Although I’m being quite unfair to some mentally challenged folks I’ve met who still manage to have good hearts.)
Wow. That’s pretty sweeping.
Do you agree that most health care spending goes to things that are not life-or-death? Or is it also the case that a private company can charge as much as it likes for an office visit? So, the next time you take your child to the doctor for strep throat, his office can charge you $150,000, and you have no choice but to pay?
Or is it possible, even theoretically, to shop around for different insurance plans that cost different amounts, and cover different things?
OK, then government funded health care should cost significantly less than any other sort. After all, the government can simply declare what health services cost, and therefore Medicare-covered visits to a doctor cost only a few pennies. Correct?
Regards,
Shodan
OK, I’m game, just because I want to see where you’ll go with this.
I live in West Ridge, aka West Rogers Park, a “bad neighborhood” of Chicago. (Not the worst, true, but not even in the top 40% in crime and reputation. The wikipedia entry was obviously written by the Chamber of Commerce; it’s laughably rosy.)
My son attends Sullivan High School, consistently one of the worst high schools in one of the worst public school districts in the nation. It’s on the Failure list for NCLB, meaning that I can technically send him to any other school in the district (that has room to take him) for free, but they’re all Failing, too. It’s 98% low income, 98% “underclass” by both racial definitions and behavioral definitions. There are metal detectors, cops in uniform and key card photo IDs hanging around every student and teachers’ neck. Less than 50% of the students in his district graduate.
Both of these facts are consistent with posts that I’ve made here for the last three years. I post a lot, and a lot of personal information. If anyone can refute these claims by quoting a past post, they’re welcome to do it.
So…what? What’s your point now? I don’t understand how this challenge supports or refutes your argument in any way, but go for it.
Yup. That doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily less necessary. The kid with strep throat can perhaps do without it. The diabetic who needs insulin, not so much.
What I probably should have said was that it doesn’t respond well to market forces. The demand side of the ‘supply and demand’ equation can’t really be controlled.
That doesn’t work so well if you have a pre-existing condition. If you can’t afford treatment right out, what are the odds you can find a plan in your price range that’ll cover it, if your job doesn’t provide one? No sane private company is likely to charge you less than they know you’ll cost them.
Not exactly. There’s obviously a base cost that needs to be covered (I’m given to understand that some countries pay too little, here). But UHC can keep prices from rising much more than that.
I shouldn’t post first thing in the morning…
So you’re fine with a system that subsidizes your healthcare, but not with one that subsidizes somebody else’s?
Defense, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid consume about a third of the Federal budget each. I’ll let you guess which one of those things Canada doesn’t have to worry about.
Caps on med school enrolment were enacted in 1996 as part of the Balanced Budget Act, in order to reduce the cost of Medicare. However, Medicare still pays for an awful lot of the total cost of graduate medical study and residency programs (specific numbers are hard to find).
In other words, your healthcare is already subsidized.
It’s the base rate in Florida, and I don’t know where you live.
We’re around 10%. And we have state income tax. And too much snow.
Why am I living here?
Yes, based on apparently nothing. If you even bothered to read all of this thread there have been numerous examples and links. Just because you’re too lazy to look at the evidence doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Trust me, nothing you’ve posted has been a problem for me to understand, since it’s all mostly 10th grade-level ignorance. I was exaggerating for effect, to point out the stupidity of your argument. It’s an old rhetorical device.
That’s because she’s what the Dutch call, “An asshole simpelton.”
You do realise the USA is the only first world country without UHC?
To quote from this wikipedia article (because it has cites) -
[ul]
[li]A single payer system could save $286 billion a year in overhead and paperwork. Administrative costs in the U.S. health care system are substantially higher than those in other countries and than in the public sector in the US: one estimate put the total administrative costs at 24 percent of U.S. health care spending.[/li]
[li]America spends a far higher percentage of GDP on health care than any other country but has worse ratings on such criteria as quality of care, efficiency of care, access to care, safe care, equity, and wait times, according to the Commonwealth Fund.[/li]
[li]Universal health care could act as a subsidy to business, at no cost thereto. (Indeed, the Big Three of U.S. car manufacturers cite health-care provision as a reason for their ongoing financial travails. The cost of health insurance to U.S. car manufacturers adds between $900 and $1,400 to each car made in the U.S.A.)[/li]
[li]The profit motive adversely affects the cost and quality of health care. If managed care programs and their concomitant provider networks are abolished, then doctors would no longer be guaranteed patients solely on the basis of their membership in a provider group and regardless of the quality of care they provide. Theoretically, quality of care would increase as true competition for patients is restored.[/li]
[li]According to an estimate by Dr. Marcia Angell roughly 50% of health care dollars are spent on health care, the rest go to various middlepersons and intermediaries. A streamlined, non-profit, universal system would increase the efficiency with which money is spent on health care.[/li]
[li]In countries in Western Europe with public universal health care, private health care is also available, and one may choose to use it if desired. Most of the advantages of private health care continue to be present, see also two-tier health care.[/li]
[li]…in countries with universal health care, the government spends less tax money per person on health care than the U.S. For example, in France, the government spends $569 less per person on health care than in the United States. This would allow the U.S. to adopt universal health care, while simultaneously cutting government spending and cutting taxes.[/li][/ul]
Ahh, but you forget that the USA is different than all other first world countries. Because…uh…big government bad!..freedom!..black people!!! That’s the ticket!
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that middle class wages have declined in real purchasing power since about 1980 despite the growth of our economy and increases in worker efficiency?
curlcoat: sure, because all the middle class purchasing power is being given away to the indigent poor, amirite?!?!?! Damn trashy poor folk, taking all our money!
How would you define “first world”?
How would you define “define”?
How would you define, “Stupid shitheel who plays semantic games to deflect attention from how utterly pathetic and without merit his position is”?
My point is the same as it was before. That most educated people are just as elitist as me in their desire not to live in areas which are heavily populated by folks from the underclass. Or to send their children to such schools.
Assuming you are telling the truth, one can exclude the possibility that you are a sanctimonious hypocrite like Gam Zeh Yaavor. Congratulations.