:dubious: Hardly, despite repeated references to the “industrial north” by London based media companies, when most of the north is rural, and any excuse to do a “special report” from Manchester on “Gun crime UK” when there’s another shooting in London.
Yeah, there’s areas of deprivation, but the majority of northerners aren’t belonging to an underclass like brazil84 describes it!
How much are you putting away? COBRA can be incredibly expensive. I’ve seen quotes as high as 2K a month. That can be difficult to manage when an unemployment check is $200 a week.
I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to discuss how you’d get UHC countries to switch to private care. I mean, it’s not going to happen anyway.
I had considered the potential for additional turnover or even emigration, but then I looked at the numbers, and it turns out that the US is already suffering a severe nursing shortage, and med-school enrollment caps enforced in the 80s and 90s mean we’re about to enter a severe doctor shortage too.
Plus, some states are already experiencing doctor shortages- Florida, for one- because of the ever-more-ridiculous cost of malpractice insurance.
Shh! You’re ruining my argument! 
It would be more accurate to say that there are areas of wealth, no?
No. The percentage of households receiving benefits in the North West is 27%, and for Yorkshire 24%. London’s figures are 24%. Similarly, mean income in the NW is £20,483, in the West Midlands it’s £20,563 and in the East £20,868. The South West has a mean of £20,950. Much of a muchness outside of London, yet I can’t recall anybody persistently painting the South West as chronically deprived.
It’s the presence of the super-rich in London, mostly due to the concentration of financial services there, that differentiates mean income in London from the rest of the country.
(I just noticed I mistyped your name in my previous post.)
The SW is the epicenter of rural poverty and the focus of complaints and pleas for decades. That’s why they want a motorway and an improved rail system.
Wait, in this thread you talk about being on disability and receiving checks from the government and, I would assume, government medical care for all of the disabilities you mention having. So, basically you are saying that the reason we shouldn’t have universal health care is because of people like you?
I kinda like the Ridleyized version. 
"Really Not All That Bad"
If you’d ever tried driving on the A37, or had to change trains at Exeter St. David whether or not you were going West…
My only real concerns are that the government will use UHC to make sweeping bans on foods or activities because it’s paying for healthcare. I’ve heard people make the same argument that they should be able to tell people on welfare what they can eat/drink/whatever because their taxes are paying for it.
My other concern is that healthcare is, like everything in life, scarce. By scarce I mean there is a finite amount of medicine, doctors, equipment, etc. UHC won’t change that fact.
If we do adopt UHC we should try do something like this: Ernest Madu: Bringing world-class health care to the poorest Now this guy is talking about doing this in the 3rd world. He’s already done it in Jamaica. Essentially he’s made affordable and world class health care by making smart technical choices such as modular equipment and hospitals networked together. Now mind his centers are private but this could be applied to government run healthcare. I highly recommend everyone watch this video.
Are there any estimates on how much UHC will cost each person in taxes per year?
Do you have info on the “sweeping bans” enacted in the many other countries with UHC?
Why not train more doctors? Medicine & equipment are manufactured–they are not irreplaceable natural resources.
Doesn’t the underclass already get taxpayer-funded health care, thru Medicaid?
If you are still talking about the underclass, I don’t think they are going bankrupt paying for their own healthcare.
But your point about preventative care is not as convincing as it might be. The federal government already spends hundreds of millions of dollars on taxpayer-funded vaccinations for children. Yet substantial numbers of children - from 37 to 56% - are unvaccinated. One would think that if there was a pent-up demand for preventative care, those rates would be higher, and the costs of vaccine-preventable diseases in adults would be negligible.
THe rest of my objections are the usual - [ul][li]People who now have no coverage would be covered - i.e. demand goes up. Generall, when demand goes up, cost goes up.[]Economies of scale - there are very few programs of the federal government which are more efficient and less costly than the private sector. Compare, for instance, the US mail with FedEx. FedEx has to be prevented by law from directly competing with the US Postal service.[]The major reason health care costs go up is that the consumer is shielded from the cost. It is perceived, therefore, as “free”. This happens now with employer-funded health care. It would continue or increase with taxpayer funded health care.[*]There is currently much complaining about how HMOs only care about getting the patient out the door at minimum cost. See the recent uproar about discharging new mothers from the hospital after twentyfour hours. The medical outcomes, on average, were no worse for a twentyfour hour discharge than for the traditional fortyeight hour. Yet, in 1996, laws were passed requiring insurance companies to cover for the longer stay (cite - PDF).[/ul][/li]
This is not to say that UHC cannot possibly work. It is merely reason to suspect that a direct transplant of the UK health plan to the US may not lead us to the Promised Land of a decrease in health care costs.
Regards,
Shodan
Fully familiar. Grew up there. Family still there.
I didn’t say it would happen. I’m just paranoid like that. I fully admit it’s an irrational fear.
I see your other point though.
Just to clear this up, at least for Canada: Health care providers in Canada carry professional liability (i.e. malpractice) insurance. Patients who feel they are victims of malpractice can and do sue their health care provider; and if they win their case, the malpractice insurer pays the claim. There are, as far as I am aware, no laws limiting how much a patient can sue for in malpractice claims; although it should be noted that awards generally follow common-law precedent regardless of how much is originally claimed. But Canada’s adoption of a single-payer system did not result in anybody “signing away everybody’s right to sue.” It still exists.
In order to get the coverage that I have now, I would have to pay 470$ a month. Considering that I have stashed away enough money to live for two years, should that amount double it would shorten the amount of time I could survive without any additional income, but not so much so that I’m worried about it.
Why? I’m not, and I have no intention to be. One of the things I like about living in the US is that taking care of yourself is supposed to be your own damn responsibility.
Although, I’m not so happy about the decline in that attitude.
Can I just nuance your interpretation: “are not fully immunized by age 2” is what the article says.
It also mentions that there are “as many as 16 doses in about five visits to the doctor before a child’s second birthday”. Which is somewhat less negligent behaviour than your rephrasing appears to make it.
Part of this may be due to the non-universality of such an offering, if the article is to be believed: “Only half of health insurance plans cover childhood vaccines, though many public health departments offer them free or at a reduced fee based on income.” My emphasis. Not quite how I initially read what you were saying. IMO you have every right to be annoyed if throwing half a billion dollars at the problem isn’t done within a comprehensive, universal, and relatively efficient framework.
Could I therefore also theorise that the low takeup rate may possibly be due to unfamiliarity with universal-style healthcare? In the UK, where it’s expected, and there is a free-at-delivery clinic for all children, and a program kicked off by the midwives/doctors/nurses. In the UK, despite all the MMR/autism scare nonsense, in 2004/5 there was an 81% takeup rate for this innoculation. Prior to the scare, it was 92%.
Because you seem to think that UHC is inherently worse. If it is, then you shouldn’t have too much trouble coming up with arguments to convince someone under such a plan to want to change. Tell me, why should I prefer the mess of a system the US has now to what I enjoyed north of the border? It sure as hell isn’t costing me less.
To be fair if you use insurance you’re not really paying for just yourself. The losses are pooled among a large group.
No, we could afford anything. Before the war.
With power devolving to legislatures in Scotland and Wales, the UK might be mistaken for a federal system – though, indeed, it’s not. However, there is no way that New Zealand could be thought to be a federal system.
The true opposition to UHC isn’t contained in the shallows of the conversations on this board. The reason it will never happen, at least not to the extent that it has abroad is because the insurance lobby is more powerful than most of us know. Further, there are tens of thousands of people employed by the insurance industry, not to mention the many fat-cat CEO’s making outrageous salaries and frankly, the insurance industry is too closely married to our economy via investment to risk putting all the big boys out of work because if they can’t make a margin, they won’t risk the mission. I’m generally for UHC, but I just don’t see it.