You are confusing correlation with causation. There are a lot of factors that contribute to an aggregated life expectancy statistic beyond whether a country has UHC or not. (think general diet, murder rates, drug use etc.) This is why empiricism is so often useless in economics. Unlike science , you cannot hold anything constant, so determining causation through statistics and studies is nearly impossible.
So what are we left with? Logic. Logically, if a UHC system offers worse health care than a free-market system then the quality of life of the people has been reduced. If there are procedures that the government forgoes because they are expensive and only save someone’s life 5-10% of the time, but that would have been available for purchase in a free market system, then the lengths of our lives have been reduced, ceteris paribus.
This is a bizarre way to look at the situation. Insurance companies aren’t "denying " anything. They are covering what is agreed to in their contract. And if your insurance doesn’t cover the operation you want, you can always pay for it out of pocket. You choose the contract you sign and the plan you want.
OTOH, in a UHC system, this isn’t the case at all. The government takes your money by force and tells you what health care you are able to receive. If you want health care beyond that which the government provides, too bad: they won’t provide it and no one else is allowed to, either.
LOL, “negotiation?” Negotiation is an interesting affair at the point of a gun.
I misspoke. It’s not really a “price control” persay, since the government is the one purchasing all the medicine. But in any case…the government can set the terms of the arrangement, because it has the guns.
Given the massive government regulations on new drugs, it is much simpler to advertise the drugs you already have on the market than to create new ones. How is this an argument for more government intervention in health care?
And I did not mean to sound insulting. Given the large number of people opposed to UHC, I would think there is some solid evidence about problems with it. Certainly some implementations of it have not been successful. For instance, is there evidence of the increase in time required to see doctors for certain procedures under UHC? I’ve seen a lot of data about the benefits, and I expected to see data about the disadvantages.
Yeah, really funny, my parents had the convenience to choose on paying a lot or not getting their medicines that got before at little or no charge. Rather than being under that gun, they choose to get more affordable prescriptions in El Salvador; where curiously enough, the medicine makers have no trouble dealing with the government.
And as it is typical for hundreds of discussion before, UHC countries mention those troubles in the context of fixing them within the system, not to change it.
One more thing, people who are not insured or under insured -like me- have the “privilege” of waiting, until the problem requires you to go to the emergency room.
Most of the reason medicine costs so much right now is government regulation through the FDA. Creating a new drug is at least a ten-year proposition - not necessarily to make the drug, but to get it through the FDA. As such, it is necessary for pharmas to charge more for the drugs, because they have to wait so long to get any return on their R+D investments.
In El Salvador - no regulations = cheap drugs. It’s awesome.
Don’t take my attacks on UHC as evidence that I approve of the status quo. I don’t. The government needs to get out of the health care industry entirely.
So? The problems are * inherent* in any UHC system. I’m glad that the administrators in charge of the UHC systems have good intentions, but they can’t overcome the massive inherent flaws in the institution.
Again, so? You made the decision as to how much insurance to purchase. The government didn’t force you to not buy insurance.
Well, showing ignorance is not. There are regulations, even from 1927 on there are laws protecting consumers at the pharmacy, I grant that they are not as good as in the USA, but for less well to do folks quackery is rampant, then people do pay for that “awesomeness” you mention in different ways. (death is one form) Thanks to CAFTA, many heath safety rules from the USA are on the way to being implemented, and like in my parental units case, the prescription from the USA is the same in El Salvador.
Your statements don’t add up.
What are the inherent flaws in UHC? Why can’t they be overcome for the huge amount of GDP we pay out yearly?
Your second statement: There are many working poor that have to choose between health care or food. They can’t afford to pay for health Insurance. Would you suggest in just to bad?
One of the biggest problems with the US medical system has nothing to do with free-markets or government mandates. It’s malpractice insurance. Take a look at this article here. The ob-gyn mentioned in that article is going to pay $84,000 for malpractice insurance this year. Eighty-four thousand dollars!!! That’s $7000 per month! :eek: The average malpractice award is over a million dollars. We need tort reform, not UHC.
Why not both?
I think we need both. Malpractice insurance is ridiculously hire, settlements are ridiculously high and these contribute to Health Insurance being ridiculously high.
I have waited for more than 20 years for the predicted collapse of the UHC systems, I’m still waiting. Get a different argument.
That is just a red herring since I’m working to get better care, any other tired arguments?
The issue is to get better health care and that we all pay less for it, the USA is on its way to paying 15% GDP or more in health care compared to what other developing nations pay, and all are insured:
One thing one notices: almost all developed countries use less than 10% of their GDP in health care, the USA is usually around 13% and if we follow the same path, even the big insurance companies are happy to tell you they will get better… their pockets that is, for many Americans there will be less access and more costs.
And even that argument is limited by the fact that virtually all “million dollar verdicts” and settlements in the end are worth much less when all the appeals and negotiations are finished.
Worth less to the Client. The Insurance Company still pays out a huge amount in Legal fees. Tort reform would be great. I just think it is only a part of the problem not the entire problem.
Indeed, if there is UHC in the USA then I would be in favor of Tort reform.
One item is seldom mentioned in discussion like this is Euthanasia, IMHO UHC affects the humane use of it: one group of doctors I helped during an internship in the SF bay area were opposed to it, not because of the usual ethical or religious points, but because in the current system of profit in the USA Euthanasia is bound to be abused in a purely for profit environment.
That is honestly a point I would never raise in a national debate. I would never want to associate UHC with easier access to Euthanasia. It would place a lot of people who could benefit from UHC against it. Myself I am in favor of personal choice in Euthanasia, but as I would like to see UHC, I wouldn’t even mention it.
Uh, the point is not about having easier access to it.
The point was that **in the current for profit environment ** **if ** euthanasia was eventually accepted, it will be a decision that will be tainted by the bean counters. That was just if we ever get to be wiser about our exit from this earth. I’m realist enough to see that even if UHC is implemented, euthanasia will still be a rare thing.
Anyone else get irritated by the fact that when you quote previous posts the software doesn’t track the arguments…that they quote only what the previous poster wrote?
Anyway, responding to your points in turn:
I never argued that UHC programs would collapse. I argue, on the other hand, that UHC is overpriced and offers poor health care, poor customer service, long wait times, and few incentives to drug companies to innovate and make us healthier.
And I agree with you that the issue is indeed to get better health care and pay less for it, and I also agree with you that the status quo is not good. However, I contend that the way to actually solve these problems is to get the government out of health care entirely. Government regulations and interventions, not only in the actual provision of health care and medicine but also in the provision of health insurance, only serve to make health care more costly to the average consumer, by stifling competition and discouraging innovation.
Also, tort reform is imperative.
Again, I agree with you that the status quo sucks, but UHC is not the solution. The system needs more competition, not less.
Actually no I wasn’t. There are lots of multivariate techniques to correct for many variables (it’s not like this isn’t a standard problem in statistics.) But the real problem is that we have evidence that UHC leads to good outcomes - we need some evidence that it won’t.
Aha - no evidence, so we get logic. Worse care for who? I’ll give you that the 1% richest might get worse care - assuming there are no loopholes. In the US we’re talking a single payer system, so it is not at all given that paying for health care is going to be forbidden. Do you really content that the poor are going to get worse health care under UHC?
You have yet to show any evidence that any such plan will not fund operations with 10% success rates. The savings are going to come from reducing administrative costs and early detection of problems - not banning operations, necessarily. Please keep the bogeyman under the bed - he don’t scare me.
I was unaware that authorizations were made by robots. What the insurance people at my doctors’ do is to code consultations the proper way. No, cosmetic surgery won’t be covered under a UHC plan, except in case of accidents, but it’s not covered in my plan today. I’m sure this won’t be banned under a UHC system. In any case, most people have limited choices. Mine were HMO or three levels of coverage under a perferred provider system. I don’t get to pick individual treatments to be covered or not.
Ooh, there’s dat bogeyman again. I have to sign up for at least a minimal health plan at work - is that taking my money by force? Or should I work part time at WalMart to increase my liberty?
But I do suppose under the current system the poor have more liberty to wait for 8 hours in an emergency room and cost the system many times more giving them health care and letting them go to a doctor.
Do you want to cut costs or not? Unless we change the current system to make it more efficient, the only way is by deciding that someone with 10 days to live should go home to die, and not get a $100,000 operation. Do you think we pay too little for health care in the US?
We’re going to have to make some hard choices, but do you think the size of someone’s bank account is the best way to determine whether they should live or die?
Canadians, does your government bring rifles to the table? No taxes to pay for health care for the poor, but plenty to stuff the profits of the drug companies. Nice!
You know, the government negotiates lots of contracts, without guns. I’m sure you feel for the poor downtrodden lobbyists.
Does thalidomide ring a bell? I’ll let you be the first to take untested drugs, since I’m sure you think that the drug companies would never, never, cut any corners to get a drug to the market. Some of the big drug companies are having problems getting new drugs working - lack of innovation - and are buying smaller companies with success. No problem with that. But when they do get a new drug out, they need to create a market for it.
I agree. Insurance companies can’t order it, doctors are properly averse to it, and even greedy doctors, if such exist, won’t want it, because killing someone is a lot cheaper than keeping them alive for a few months and lots of surgery.
Anyhow, this would seem to be the perfect self-pay procedure - being that the patient is not going to have a lot of need for his savings after it. (Insert horrified smiley here.)
Worse care for who? I’ll give you that the 1% richest might get worse care - assuming there are no loopholes. In the US we’re talking a single payer system, so it is not at all given that paying for health care is going to be forbidden. Do you really content that the poor are going to get worse health care under UHC?