# What do people actually want from healthcare? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904 "2017-03-24T13:08:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904/121 "2017-04-04T15:22:03Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Out of curiosity, has there been any economic anaysis of the effect on labour markets, or business efficiency and flexibility more generally, of employer-based health insurance? Seems to me it builds in some rigidities and burdens on employers they might prefer to do without. I don’t know if there’s been a study done - but since there’s a great variety of UHS Systems in Europe, not just the UK Approach directly connected to taxes, it’s possible to compare data. Here in Germany, employers pay (almost) the same amount of what the employee pays to the health insurance - so if the rate is e.g. 15%, both pay 7.5%, the employer before the gross paycheck, the employee when subtracting taxes and social safety insurances from the gross to get to the payable wage. Of course, some employers use this to complain about how expensive employees are. But the General impressio is that employers in all countries always complain how expensive it is to run a Business (and how much regulations hinder them, and how mean their competitors are, and how hard their life is…). So it’s hard to take them serious. Because on the other Hand, even Henry Ford famously recognized that workers having a good wage meant more consumers. Similar, having a healthy workforce that gets Treatment quickly without going bankrupt, means more consumers, and employees back on the Job quicker. The current model of “Let’s starve the workers to make even more Profit” is very short-sighted and will not work Long-term. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904/122 "2017-04-04T15:41:44Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Different people want different things from health care. I’m surprised how reasonable many of the responses to this thread are. Actually what I read is the overwhelming majority in this thread is “we want (the human right) of Access to reasonable care like the UHS that every other First class civilised Country has”. > [@](#): > > People want to feel listened to and respected. They want all necessary tests and specialist appointments. Some people want to minimize time and money spent interacting with the system. Most People in most countries want that. In non-US countries, they usually get it. Some regions have Problems with infrastructure - rural regions having Problems keeping doctors, nurses not being paid enough to retain them - regardless of the Health insurance System. This can lead to local bottlenecks and Long waiting times. All countries have local Problems of corruption (favours to amigos) or incompetency leading to Money wasted on some Project, or a Hospital running up huge debts, or bad reforms. > [@](#): > > Others want to maximize it since they have dependency issues or require a lot of support. The clichee of the old Person who talks with their doctor for one hour because they are lonely is a) widely exaggerated, it’s only a small fraction b) in an UHS will be dealt with easily because mental care and Support will also be available. c) in a System based General on solidarity, and not on Propaganda about the Horror of “undeserving People getting anything at all”, there are graded Services besides full mental Hospital or counseling. There are social counselors who visit elderly and similar People once or twice a week to help them cope with living alone. There are Centers for elderly, organizing a free tea hour every week, or a Dance, or aerobics (tailored for elderly People) and so on. Plus what Churches and charities offer to make People less lonely. > [@](#): > > Cheap medicine, physiotherapy, rehab, dental care, diabetes support, preventive medicine. Quick accessibility to learned professionals. Transparent discussions. Genuine compassion. Cultural sensitivity. Minimal error and misdiagnosis. Use of expensive technologies even if not superior to the tried and true. All of that can be achieved. Not perfectly, but better than the current System. > [@](#): > > The health professional, hospital, patient, pharmaceutical industry, HMO, lobbyist and insurance. Pmpanora have very different goals. I like single payer but it is hardly a cure all for a very difficult compromise. Basically it’s two Groups: the patients who Need care and want care to be affordable; and the People currently making out like bandits, who wouldn’t be able to do so under a new System. There is not much of a compromise I can see: rather the decision of whether you want to help the (relativly) few People earning big big bucks by keeping the current System (reversing Obamacare) or the whole of Population getting Treatment, which would mean single payer. Again, single payer is not perfect. Few things are perfect in this world, because humans are not perfect. Some are greedy and game the System (not the patients, but doctors cheating on how many People they treated, or billing the insurance for expensive procedures they didn’t perform). Some People are incomptent, but in Charge. Some People just make mistakes. But in all yardsticks, UHS gets better results for the patients and Quality of life and less Money spent than the US System. So do you want to from “not-very-good with many Problems” to “better with fewer Problems”, or stay? Or reverse to “rather bad”? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904/123 "2017-04-04T15:46:03Z")
What I found most terrible about the US System was an article I read some time back (I don’t know if this has changed with Obamacare) about a Young woman who had been hit in a no-fault traffic accident, but could not get Treatment because she was too poor. That’s a WTF Moment to every other first-world-citizen: if you are injured, you go to the Hospital/ doctor and get Treatment, and the insurance will hash it out later to make the car owners insurance pay. In this case, she would have had to pay ten thousands of Dollars first, and then go through a lenghty Trial of years to get the Money back from the car insurance of the guilty Party. So it’s not even Lifestyle choices like sky-diving, or bad luck like cancer. It’s no fault accidents that can destroy people’s life, despite Treatment being possible medically, just not affordable/ Accessible. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904/124 "2017-04-04T15:57:29Z")
It’s the “town comes together to pay for 50 year old crossing guard’s new hip” that always floor me. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904/125 "2017-04-04T16:41:06Z")
It breaks my heart what people have to fight through to get care, layers and layers of annoyances and technicalities. At the worst possible moment of their lives! As a spouse lays dying, or a child with cancer. Or an elderly spouse with a dying partner, trying to make sense of an impossible system. My God, how can you so burden people at such a time? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-actually-want-from-healthcare/782904.md?page=6)