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No, they do not.  A lot of people fall on hard times and nobody helps.

I do my part.  I've taken people into my home until they could get back on their feet.  I've paid hospital bills.  I've bought the medicine to save someone's life.  But it's not the norm, and so much so that when helping people I frequently get asked, "Why are you doing this?  What's your angle?"  There's no scam, I'm just doing what's right, and people cannot believe that's the case because they've never seen it happen before.

People should be entitled to a minimum safety net.  Food.  Shelter.  Health care.  Education.  From there, go earn the rest of what you want.  Having those things as a given makes people more productive because they'll start ventures that they could not risk if they were afraid to quit their job and lose their insurance, or be afraid that they'll starve to death if their business fails.


Apparently those people are enormous hypocrites. (http://gawker.com/5840024/ron-pauls-campaign-manager-died-of-pneumonia-penniless-and-uninsured)  Last I heard they'd only covered about 10% of the bill.


This is not a "left" problem.  This is a "corrupt politician" problem, and they're available across the spectrum and from all parties.

I'm not saying that to defend the left.  I consider myself neither leftist nor a Democrat.  I own too many guns for that.  :)  And I have a load of other issues with the Democrats, but I'd rather not divert there.  In many issues I swing libertarian, but I don't take that label either; they foam at the mouth when I talk about social safety nets.  The fact is I have complex views that defy all the common labels.  Anyway, my point is that I'm pretty neutral, and not just knee-jerk defending one side.


This isn't leftists/liberals/socialists.  This is immoral bankers who bought corrupt politicians (across the whole spectrum) and created a system where they could make money by creating piles of terrible loans, skimming off some fees, and dumping them before they ended up with any responsibility.

This was never about helping people get housing.  That's the cover story, but it was always about making bankers rich.


I ask no such thing.  They fucked up too and bear the moral responsibility for taking on debt they couldn't possibly pay.  I don't feel sorry for them.  They were being irresponsible too, so fuck 'em.  I still think they're entitled to have some kind of cheap roof over their head, but they deserve to lose their house and go spend some time in the projects until they can get their act together and start paying for something better.

I respect you for doing the right thing. Everyone should do the right thing. The government should not give people easy excuses to avoid personally doing the right thing.

But I also trust, that someone as righteous and intelligent as you, asks questions and evaluates people in the process of taking them into your own home. So I put the question to you, "How come nobody else saw fit to help the folks you took in?" Where were their family members, friends, and neighbors?

But realize you made my point. Failing, family, friends, and neighbors. Community members step in. Helping community members is in every community's self interest.


I respect you for creating this safety net. I'm thoroughly in favor of the way you implemented your safety net. It was practical and I presume had demonstrably successful results.

The same is not true of *any random* safety net implementation. And the broader you make one single net, the weaker it becomes.

I propose each individual community should provide their own safety nets. That gives lots of examples to aid evolving toward the optimal configuration. There is a lot to be said for people voting with their feet. Curiously, the net migration patterns depicted in the census seem to show people moving from high safety net states, to states with lower safety nets. Correlation is not causation. But over time, evolution favors what works.



I'm pretty sure I wouldn't call libertarians those who dedicated their mortal soul to helping the needy. However, he died in the hospital after receiving proper care. There was nothing additional medically that could have been done for him. The safety net worked.


He didn't take responsibility for his bills before he died. He didn't leave money to pay his bills after he died.

You are claiming he is entitled to not pay for his healthcare.


That makes your point is moot. In your view, he got what he is entitled.

My view is that he acted irresponsibly. As such he was a drain on his family, friends, neighbors, and community. Someone did pay for his care. I don't know who. But it was either family, friends, neighbors, community, all of us as citizens, or the doctor and hospital simply donated his care.

Curiously, doctors and hospitals are mandated by law to provide this safety net. They don't get the luxury of deciding to only work for paying customers. So in reality, the remainder of the safety net only "entitles" doctors and hospitals to get paid. However, now you have a situation where the government decides both whom is allowed to perform a service AND how much they are entitled to get paid for their services.

If this concept was applied to my chosen profession. I would quit practicing and change professions. But I'm just an asshole who thinks I'm entitled to personal free will.



Quite frankly there was plenty of corruption to go around, but I don't think any of it originated in malicious intentions. Congress and multiple administrations mandated that people be relieved of the responsibility of having to qualify for a traditional mortgage. Once they created a mortgage entitlement, all the corruption follows naturally. How could it not?



Woot!

I actually hold a whole lot of people MORE responsible than I do the mortgagees. Curiously, houses do not cost what people are willing to pay. They cost what banks are willing to loan.

There are endless experts involved in purchasing a home. They all gave corrupt advice. Banks are supposed to be experts in how much to loan. Real estate agents, loan brokers, title companies, appraisers, inspectors. All of these people hold themselves out as "experts" in the industry. It is impossible for them not to realize that prices were in a bubble. All of them advised against what should be common industry practices.

You wouldn't let doctors get away with advising healthy patients to take out healthy kidneys. Then blaming the patient for their stupid decisions because they didn't disregard the evidence presented to them by a series of expert physicians.

One was disowned by his family when he came out of the closet.  Neighbors?  They don't care about some guy they've never met renting a room in an apartment in the city where he recently came to take a job.  Friends?  Well, I stepped in, but I was the only one.

Another was dropped by his quite Christian family who felt that his mental health problems were a personal failing and so he didn't deserve their help.

Another one is an orphan, no family to fall back on at all.

So yeah, I took up the slack, and it worked out for them.  But what if I wasn't here, or what happens during the lean years when I can't afford to keep a spare room open for charity?  Sometimes the support network is there to take care of people, but sometimes, through no fault of their own, it just isn't.  This is too important to leave to a game of chance where some people just get screwed because no one wants to help.


I think you missed mine: While I'm doing this, everyone has treated me like I'm an absolute freak for wanting to help people.  It was really crystallized for me when I was talking to someone's mother to help cover the $15k of costs we were looking at.  She couldn't afford to help - fair enough - but could not understand why someone who was "just a friend" would even be trying.  That blew my mind.  (And in that case we ended up unable to do anything for him...  It was tragic.  :( )

It is completely inconceivable to most people in the United States - not all, but most - to help each other when they're down on their luck.  The persistent attitude is "Well, they must have screwed up to get there.  It's their own fault!"  I am fighting that cultural flaw, but until it's fixed, we need some systematic way to deal with this.


Of course not.  These things have to be carefully designed or they go wrong.  Obamacare is a mess - all the worst of big government bureaucracy, insurance companies, hospital billing practices, useless oversight, and so on all rolled into one big steaming log.  It's another screwup like Fannie and Freddie, just a thin veil of a worthwhile program in front of something designed to funnel a bunch of money for some particular group (insurance companies in this case, who're going to be raking in the dough from the absurdity of mandatory insurance.  What possible economic sense can that kind of market distortion make?  Cut out the middleman who has a vested interest in taking a percentage of ever increasing costs, and just pay the damn bills).

But that doesn't mean it's impossible for the government to do it right.  Every other first world nation manages a national health care program.  Why can't we?


I'm absolutely in favor of this - basically any program that can be pushed to a more local level will do better there.  When I say we should have the government involved, I don't mean the feds.  The more competing systems we can have, the better.  Health care has some ugly jurisdictional issues that make it hard to do locally, but it's not impossible.  Regardless, I completely support the principle.


The libertarians called on the churches to help out.  The churches failed to deliver.  His mother ended up with the bill.  Either she paid for his screwup, or she defaulted and the hospital eats the cost.  Either way, how is that right?


They can't deny emergency care, but there's no mandate to provide preventative care.  People get a minor infection that could be treated with a simple round of antibiotics, but it goes untreated until the infection goes systemic and they have to put them up in the ICU for $5,000.  Of course most of the time people are defaulting on hospital bills, so they jack up his (and everyone's) bill to $30,000.  They default, the hospital writes off the losses, we all end up paying for some of it, and the occasional guy who had some money but no insurance gets stuck with a $30,000 bill for some random 1-day ER visit.

"Entitling" the doctors to get paid means we can deal with this with for a $70 doctor visit plus $30 of antibiotics.


Indeed, how could it not?  Given such, how can you not see that this was intentionally, maliciously a creation of rent-seeking bankers?


Absolutely.  I wasn't trying to single out the irresponsible buyers.  The whole system is a self-perpetuating mess designed to keep raising prices to extract ever more money into the hands of bankers, realtors, and all the others you mentioned, while people own ever diminishing percentages of their homes...  The buyers are just useful idiots.  I still don't feel sorry for the idiots.  :)

All of those are quite understandable. Aside from the orphan, I've been on both sides of the family and friends issues.

It is really quite hard when you have to kick out a family member. I'm not going to go into long personal stories on an open forum, but know I've taken people in when they were rightly kicked out by their family. I've helped them get their act together and go back. I've also had to give family members the boot to avoid them taking advantage of other family members. Sometimes we've even turned to government programs for help. They never helped solve anything. But they did help "our burden" to feel better about hemself, by getting off the family's back and onto the back of random government strangers.



The truth is while you were wondering "what if I wasn't here?" Hundreds of folks you don't know took in hundreds of others. All asked themselves the same rhetorical question. It is a great question. It helps us all do the right thing. If you give that rhetorical question a trivial answer you change human character.


"Good character" is an award we give ourselves for doing the right thing. When the trivial answer becomes, "See someone in need? Dial 811" we all lose our test of character.


There is a rule of the sea that says, "Captains must render aid in times of distress. Unless it puts their crew in jeopardy. Then aid is rendered at the Captain's discretion." It's a really good rule. It has been around for a really long time.

You can't blame yourself for not being able to help. You can second guess other captains who worry about their own crew. But you don't get to override them.



I have to admit, among myself, family, and friends when one of us is down on our luck, there is a 90% chance we screwed something up ourselves to cause it. This doesn't excuse extreme interpersonal callousness. But acknowledging the problem is the first step to recovery.



Quite frankly I watched the Frontline documentary too. At the end they point out that no existing universal healthcare program pays for itself. They all run in the red. And every time they try to raise healthcare rates, the people protest in the streets. So they cut medical provider's pay, cut services, and raise taxes. We are already there.


Woot!



That's not how churches work. They help people who ask for help. They don't just send random checks.

But either way, if his mother paid for his screw up or the hospital did neither is right. If the government mandates that you and I pay for his screwup, that doesn't make it right either.



You summarized things quite nicely. But I think the root problem is people all ready feel they are "entitled" to not pay their medical bills. This causes the pricing problems you noted.

There is a brilliant guy named John Wanamaker. He invented most everything you see in retail life. Clothing stores had the same credit problems that healthcare providers currently have. It turns out stores invented credit before they invented regular payment plans. Wanamaker fixed the situation by only transacting in cash. That gave him the lowest prices and he ran everyone else out of business. His book will blow you away! He invented price tags, labels on clothing and the money back guarantee for christ sake! Before that retail was a complex scam of salesman bullshit on quality and customer haggling ability on price.

I go to the dentist and doctor and pay cash. It is amazing the prices you get and how good the service is. (Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)



Once the policy was established that the government must guarantee these "entitlement" loans, absolutely it was game on for the bankers. I don't believe, however, it was the bankers who invented the concept of mortgage entitlement. That is not in their nature.

Clearly there were "good intentions" paving the Fannie Mae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae) Freddie Mac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mac) road to hell.



Me either!

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917

Then again, you think that cash-strapped churches can pay the medical bills of 50 million uninsured people under the most expensive medical system in the world, so you're really beyond reasoning with.

I wonder how many more people need to die from lack of insurance before people realize that having insurance is a must? Also, the more people buy insurance, the cheaper it gets for everyone. One big reason I am for the individual mandate.

Don't get me wrong - I strongly support the individual mandate given the assumption that we need to channel all the funds through insurance companies.  But I think that system of collecting money from employeers, individuals, and generating refundable tax credits is convoluted and inefficient.  I think we'd be better off taking all the money that's spent purchasing insurance and using it to fund a single-payer system.

This is the most corrupting fallacy.

Total medical insurance cost for everyone is a really simple function to calculate. It is total healhcare costs for everyone, plus considerable overhead.

Over their lifetimes, the vast majority of people will pay significantly MORE for medical insurance, than they would have paid for health CARE had they chosen to save their premiums and pay in cash.

Buying medical insurance is exactly the same as playing the lottery or gambling in Vegas. Sure you might score a big "win!" But in this case "win" means you get horribly maimed or are rewarded with prolonged illness. As Charlie Sheen would say, "Duh! Winning!"

Some people like to complain that most rich people don't gamble enough in Vegas. Middle class people can gamble in Vegas whenever they want. But there are lots of poor folks who want to go gambling in Vegas but can't afford it. That seems unfair. If we mandated that all rich people go gambling in Vegas, then we could use the extra revenue to send free slot play vouchers to the poor so they could go gambling in Vegas too!

That's not true, at least for the health care system in the United States today. It should be true in theory, as the insurance companies have to make a profit, but it's not true in practice for two reasons:

1) Tax policy heavily favors medical insurance. Employers can pay their employees in the form of medical insurance and the employer does not pay payroll tax and the employee does not pay income tax or social security tax on the amounts.

2) Insurance companies have negotiated low rates with health care providers while the rates paid by people paying for their own care are kept artificially high by a variety of factors. Essentially, it is not practical for an individual to negotiate for the cost of his health care because you don't know what care is needed soon enough, while it is worth the cost for insurance companies to negotiate the price of each item.

Both of these factors could easily be fixed if there was the political will to do it. In that case, your argument would be correct. Then it would be rational to only purchase health insurance for catastrophic health care or for long-term health status changes. You still need insurance in case you need dialysis for the rest of your life or a heart valve replacement, but there's no reason your insurance company should get a cut of your $40 checkup. (Much as we do with every other form of insurance such as auto, home, and so on.)

Single payer would still be insurance, and thanks tyo insurance being greatly affected by economies of scale, a single insurance monopoly would indeed be the most efficient system. Though I'm not sure if people would be ok with not having a choice as to which insurance company screws them.


The difference is that with healthcare, EVERYONE is forced to gamble, whether you have insurance or not. So, if you are lucky, you'll never need it, and if not, you may be bankrupt. Even if the total cost = total amount paid in, the odds if you needing it are way above the odds of you wasting all the money you put in. So, just from a risk-reward aspect, it's still worth it.
Though, when I was selling life insurance, our recommendation was to buy declining coverage amount that dropped the layout every year, and invest money into a personal insurance fund. After a few year (15+) the client would have enough save up that they no longer need life insurance, since they are self insured. Maybe that could work with health insurance, too, though due to some costs that may arise, that may not be easy.

The gap could perhaps be covered by health status insurance.
http://reason.com/archives/2009/03/03/the-health-status-insurance-so (http://reason.com/archives/2009/03/03/the-health-status-insurance-so).

The short version of the way this insurance works is this: You pay a reasonably low premium. The policy pays out only if you are diagnosed with a new, long-term medical condition. The policy pays out the net present value of the difference between your expected medical costs without the condition and your expected medical costs with the condition over the rest of your life. The payout goes into an interest-bearing trust that can only be used to pay your medical bills or medical insurance premiums.

Essentially, this protects you from getting priced out of the market for catastrophic health care insurance and it protects you from getting into a situation where you can't reasonably afford your non-catastrophic health costs.

Why can't I buy this?  :(

Yes! Employee health insurance has always been a way for employers to reduce payroll. That was the whole point of it. If it increased payroll, they would simply pay the employees a little more, and let the employees buy their own. It has been that way since the invention of employee health insurance. It is a perk to attract a certain class of employees to the company for a lower salary.

Minimum wage companies never offered the perk because it does nothing to lower their payroll. It's not that they're cold unfeeling bastards. It's just that they are in business to make a profit, just like the employers who do offer health insurance.

It is illegal to say, I'm going to give you $3 an hour but free insurance. It is easy for a company to say to higher level employees, you get 10K less in salary, but good insurance. It's not really a deal, but higher level employees are not really that smart either.



If you go to private practices you will find them more negotiable than they let on. It's only business. It's nothing personal.

Rework your math.

The more healthy friends and family you can gather together in a group, the more it makes sense for that group to "self insure" by saving money and paying for whoever gets sick in cash.

If more unhealthy friends and family you have, the more it makes sense for everyone to buy insurance. That is why there is so much fuss about pre-existing conditions. It's like card counting in Vegas. You can't require the casino to allow card counters. They're not being heartless, they are saying it's not gambling if you've got a sure thing.



Ta Da! You've just become a Republican!

I don't want an award for good character.  This isn't about me.  I want people to get the help they need in an easy and fair manner.



I don't blame myself for the ones I can't help, but they still don't deserve to die or be left in the cold at the whim of my good or bad fortune.



Of course! I'm not saying there shouldn't be consequences for people's actions.  What I advocate is that no matter how badly someone screws up, the bare necessities - food, shelter, health care, education - are not in jeopardy.  Let them lose everything else and restart from dirt-poor again.  They want life to stop sucking?  They work their way out of it.  But leave them in a position where they don't have to literally fear for life and limb while they do it.

People work better and make smarter long-term decisions when they're motivated by desire rather than fear.



Actually, I have not watched the Frontline documentary.  I'm one of those "Don't own a TV" freaks.  That's how I have time to spend on these forums!  :)

They can tax me.  I'm not a fan of big government, but I'm much more opposed to being forced to pay big corporations.  I would have paid this money to insurance companies anyway, and they'd take 30% for themselves...  Cut them out and the same amount of money that I'm already paying will go farther.

As it is, hospitals are cutting more and more corners and are still constantly on the verge of bankruptcy.  It's mostly due to the large number of uninsured patients that are constantly defaulting.  They would much rather set their rates lower and actually get paid instead of playing roulette with each new patient that walks in.

I know this because I've talked in person to a perhaps a dozen doctors and other workers about it - My GP, ER surgeons, nurses, billing clerks, a cardiologist, psych ward shrinks... Most strongly support a switch to a single-payer system; a few are more ambivalent but think it couldn't be worse than what we have now.


Thanks for saying so.  :)  I hope you don't mind my mostly focusing on the parts where we disagree.



The churches were asked.  They chipped in, but it won't cover it.  Who should, then?  The hospital?  That's who it's going to fall to by default.

I'd rather not have these screwups in the first place.  Do you agree that everyone should be covered some way or another?  By making it universal, we will never have to say "Well, you should have had insurance!  You screwed up!"


How would you fix this problem?


Same here.  I carry catastrophic-only coverage and just pay all my own routine bills in cash.  Sadly, they don't take coins yet.  :)

Sorry, I'm telling everyone: Just like anything, never pay list price.  Almost all providers will give you the same discount as the insurance companies (about half off for routine things).  You just have to ask nicely.  Some will discount farther if you're paying cash, and they'll still love you as a customer because they hate dealing with insurance companies.  This even works for ER trips that you can't negotiate up-front: they would much rather get paid a fair rate (usually less than a quarter of what you get billed) with no hassles than to have you default.


Bankers have been rigging the system since long before Fannie and Freddie.

Woot! Health insurance derivatives!

It's like gambling on the odds you'll win in Vegas over time!

Healthy doesn't save you from accidents, infections, or cancer. That's why I said everyone is forced to gamble, and that's why healthy 20 to 30-somthings who don't buy insurance because they don't think they'll need it are incredibly dumb.

This is bad math, and it tends to be more separated by gender among the young.

If you take all the 20 something men over the last decade, tally up every penny that got spent on health care then divide to find the mean. It will be well under the cost of insurance. 20 something men don't get very sick. They do tend to crash cars, get in fights and get injured while drunk. If you are one of those, insurance would pay of big time. If you are not, you are gambling against yourself.

20 something women's health care costs tend to differ based upon pregnancy rates. If you are going to get pregnant insurance may be a good gamble. If you hate kids, save your money.

It is important to realize that Obamacare mandates health insurance among the young to subsidize the old. Not to protect the young.

Probably true, but this is a meaningless number. In the United States, a big part of the value of health insurance is holding down the amount you have to spend on health care through taking advantage of tax incentives, negotiated prices, and so on.

If you hire a consultant to decide what product to buy, how to pay for it, and who to buy it from, you'll pay more than if you bought that same product from that same persona at that same price without hiring the consultant. It does not follow that you wasted money by hiring the consultant. Without the consultant, you may have paid more for an inferior product.

In the United States, health insurance does much more than just pay for your health care.

Unfortunately, it's worse than that. That's what the purpose of a health insurance mandate would be if it were not broken. But the Obamacare mandate is too broken to even do that.

The 'Obamacare' thing is a work of art of which any fascist would be proud.  The government forcing people into the private and completely parasitic insurance industry in such a way that the industry no longer has to take a loss on those who actually need it, and they have no effective limit on costs either.  And the drug companies are left completely free to run the racket they bought under Bush-II.

The whole system preserves the basic principle of re-distribution of wealth.  You see, over the course of a lifetime a certain fraction of Americans actually can accumulate something worth taking.  When they are sick which, conveniently enough, often turns out to be near the end of their life, they are vulnerable to extortion so they will happily part with a great number of assets.  Retaining the unbelievable cost of drugs and 'treatments' facilitates this.  Thanks for nothing, Obama.

1) Everyone should be entitled to ACCESS to health care.
Meaning there should be no discrimination based on race, creed, color... or any damn thing. People get sick. People get care.

2) Everyone should be REQUIRED to pay their own bills. Period.
Insurance is what people buy to meet their obligation to pay their own bills.
If you don't need insurance to meet your personal obligations, well good for you!

If you decide for some magical reason that you are special. You are *entitled* to avoid your personal obligations. Well then, I think society as a whole should give you, and all people like you, a loud "Fuck You!". Does that mean we revoke (1). No. But it means we revoke your access to as much of society as necessary so that people instinctively realize the necessity of meeting their personal obligations. You should be treated at least a scornfully as we do with sex offenders. Your name should be put on a public list.

We already went through exactly the same process with student loans. We wanted everyone to be *entitled* to get an education (we still do). But a ridiculous number of people decided they were *entitled* to not repay their loans. These people are/were Fuck Heads. So did we do away with student loans? No. Did we provide free college to everyone. No. We said, you are going to have to pay back your loans. One way or another. Pay, or we as a society are going to garnish your wages and make you pay. The same principle we use for child support, crime restitution, etc. The system isn't fixed yet. But it has stopped getting worse.

People often use the requirement to buy auto insurance as their model for health care reform. To that, I give a big, WOOT!, WOOT!, WOOT!!!

In my state, we have a requirement to provide "proof of financial RESPONSIBILITY" before you receive the privilege of driving. To people without deep pockets, this means getting a third party with deep pockets to commit to helping you meet your obligations should your need emerge. If you happen to have a rich uncle, you can create a financial responsibility trust fund or some such. Most people just buy insurance.


No one in a free society should ever be *mandated* to forgive someone else of their obligations. That is tyrannical.

If you choose to help someone meet their obligations out of friendship, compassion, charity or family, you should be praised by society. You can award yourself the personal attribute of "Good Character." I personally will call you *awesome!*

And if a Fuck Head denies his obligations all the way to his personal end. If he dies endorsing his tyrannical *entitlement* remain above any societal obligations. Well then, we as a society should posthumously and ceremonially revoke his citizenship. We should carve his name into granite on a monument of ignominy. "Here lists those who in there whole lives, were never good enough to live among us. May God Fuck Their Souls!"

Hopefully then, in the future, we will hear stories not of people who were "born poor, but made themselves rich." But we will hear stories that go, "I was born of two Fuck Heads. But I grew up and earned my own Good Character!"

---
Wow, I just went back and read the first post on this thread. I guess I'll have to mark my post here...
<OFF TOPIC>
Sorry!

Holy shit, you can't be real.

Sex offenders? Seriously?

Oh, and all of those *entitled* people who think they're too good for insurance? I'd like to know how they're supposed to afford $700/month insurance on an $1100/month minimum wage, but fuck it they're poor and worse than rapists.

Kill yourself. No seriously, kill yourself and every other retard who still believes the Just World fallacy past age 8. Even if you're trolling, kill yourself.

Cool! A guy who wants to build an "Unjust World" filled with tyrannical people who fail to acknowledge any personal obligations. Go for it! I really think this planet is big enough to try all sorts of experimental societies. Evolution will sort out what works and what doesn't. I'm sure there are many people who want to live among folks like you. Go forth and multiply. Leave the people who want to meet their personal obligations alone.

Read this before you prove yourself even stupider than I already thought:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Cool. Another needless pseudo-intellectual renaming of a more commonly known term. "Blaming the victim"
But if you'll notice, never one did I blame any victim. Never once did I endorse over paying for insurance.

Many financially poor, want to pay their own bills. Most expect to pay their own bills. The concept of entitlement comes as a shock to most of the new immigrant poor. I live in a southern conservative area where many Vietnamese boat people immigrated. (they call themselves that). They were clearly victims before they left. They were victimized many times by folks here. No one wanted the Vietnamese living among them. The world was not just.

However, it turns out those Vietnamese people were. They worked hard. Pooled their own money. Loaned their own money. Started their own businesses. Paid their own tuition. Paid their own bill. It never occurred to them there should be any alternative. I never heard of a single case of them begging for a bank loan, or purchasing insurance. (Not in the first two decades) Yet there were never complaints of them "draining the system". They always met every obligation. Their society wouldn't let anyone fuck things up for the rest of them. Now people flock to their neighborhoods. They make great neighbors.


I am claiming the root of over priced health care is two fold. 1) Insurance. 2) Entitlement  The two are in fact orthogonal concepts. But psychologically many have conflated the concepts.

1) Insurance causes "price increases" (not provider cost increases) for the obvious reason. Insurance companies *must* pay whatever prices are billed. They negotiate in order to avoid this getting out of hand. In the absence of insurance, medical providers must limit their prices to only what people are actually *able* to pay.

This is a corollary to mortgage loans affecting housing prices. In the absence of mortgage loans the average house would be priced around $80,000. Or whatever it turned out an average family could actually save in a few years.

Both insurance and mortgages were created to help responsible people pay their obligations. Their creation had the unintended side effect of increasing commodity prices. (Not the cost to produce the commodity.)

2) Entitlement is the opposite of helping people meet their own obligations. It should have absolutely nothing to do with insurance or mortgages.

However, some perverted psychologic concept caused envious people to say, "Hey that guy is going to the Doctor but he doesn't have to pay. His insurance company has to pay. What make him so fucking special?" This was a perverted view of course because, on average, everyone with insurance was already paying more for insurance (or being rewarded less in salary) than they would be if they just paid for their own care.

In honor of rainingbitcoins, I'll call this perversion, "Just-World Envy". Envying the victim for getting screwed, and demanding they get screwed too, purely out of fairness.

But like going to a hooker, when confronted with the cost of getting screwed they balked. "He that guy is rich! He can afford to get screwed! But what about me? I'm too poor to get screwed honestly! Hence, the birth of the concept, "Entitlement". I'm too poor to get screwed by the insurance companies. So I'm entitled to rape the doctor.


This perceived entitlement (of not having to pay) is what began the drive up in actual health care costs. These increasing costs compounded the provider's above dive to increase prices. Thus further raising insurance rates, and further screwing the responsible.

Realizing they were being screwed, the responsible began demanding only the absolute best, most expensive, treatments. Shouldn't they be entitled? After all they are paying for all the deadbeat fuck heads?.

Hospitals and Doctors are perfectly happy to sell expensive products if there is a DEMAND for them. And of course there is. Who wants to pay for less than the absolute best health care? Even if that CAT/PET scan is unnecessary medically. At least it, psychologically, makes you feel better knowing you absolutely don't have something the doctor told you that you couldn't possibly have.

Of course, since you are entitled not-to-pay for basic health care. Shouldn't you also be entitled not-to-pay for the unnecessary treatments the responsible are paying for? It's only fair...

------
Sure, it's TL;DR

But solving the problem, means first acknowledging the problem. Ask any alcoholic.

Look how fucking terrified you are of some poor person somewhere getting something for nothing while the rich rob our country blind.

The biggest Medicare fraudster in U.S. history is the current governor of Florida, but no, it's the poor who are the problem.

Look who's trolling now! I'm certainly not terrified of anyone getting something for nothing. I'm not worried about the rich robbing our country blind.

Next week I'm taking a friend to get more free healthcare after getting shot in the face. The health care system fixed him up brilliantly cost free. You wouldn't even notice. Even though getting shot was entirely his fault.

You are clueless if you think we are better off we still have him.

One of my favorite rich people just died. He was abandoned by his parents as a baby. He built the most valuable company in the world. Yeah, what an evil fuck up he must have been.

You are clueless if you think we are better off for his loss.


You should turn him in. They pay rewards for turning in fraudsters. If you send me evidence, I'll turn him in.

Protips: health insurance and private health system SUCKS

How to fix usa system: wake up and look how things work in europe. Make a PUBLIC system, stop with all the private and insurances idiocies. You all pay enough taxes to have a decent public healthcare

The USA doesn't have a private system. Our system has tremendous government oversight and subsidies along with many clinics that are exclusively funded by medicare and medicaid. We just get the facade of corporate logos covering the government funding.

Anyway, it epic sucks and each "private" hospital or clinic try to make as much profit as possible.

Not at all. They have no incentive to make profit since the government will write them a check anyways. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Most of the government funded clinics are horribly inefficient.

If these companies were profit-oriented, they would actually have incentive to want to keep customers and their business. They would be giving them quality service. When a paycheck from the taxpayers is guaranteed in any capacity, anything goes. Sometimes you'll be lucky to get an appointment without having to miss work.

If a person has the ability to individually deny a service money, they can put it towards a service that actually meets their desires.

If you take that right away, they are left with the short-end of the stick and what the government's lobbyists give them. 

Saudi Arabian crown prince dies at New York hospital (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/22/world/meast/saudi-arabia-prince-dead/)

It's funny how headlines tend to conflict with the "common wisdom". When you have all the money in the world, and your life is at stake. Where do you go for the best medical treatment? Europe!


So does Greece!

Protip: your trolling about not curable things doesn't make europe better or worse


And? Again, more trolling.

You go to Cuba!... "Hugo Chavez travels to Cuba for medical tests"
Unlike the Saudi Prince you're refering to, Chavez is okay now - http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-20/chavez-says-he-s-free-of-illness-following-cuba-exams.html
‎

Yeah, they go to Cuba and get an entire infection across their body from a botched surgery. Lovely.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/hugo_chavez_returns_home_amid_reports_of_botched_surgery_in_cuba.html

http://reason.com/assets/mc/jtaylor/paynemoore.jpg

What on Earth is not curable?  Greece was a perfectly viable country for thousands of years. We still worship their ruins. Europe was the birthplace of a lot of greatness in the years before the great whining. Hell even Russia is seeing benefits in Neo-Fascism over Communism. (Not a good thing, but apparently a less bad thing.)

It is all fixable. Even Europe. It just requires solving actual problems rather than addressing fantasy ones.

If nobody is willing to deny Insurance and Entitlement are the root caused of our problem, then it's clear we are all in agreement on the cause of our troubles.

But somehow, more insurance and more entitlement is supposed to address the problem? WTF? It is clear that Democrats don't think Obamacare will solve any of the problems. They acknowledge it will drive total health expenses up. That is exactly the problem they blame the industry for. But still pretending to address some fantasy problem is better than doing nothing at all! Spare me.

The same holds for Greece. Whoever thinks allowing Greece to be irresponsible for their spending will cause Greece to become more responsible for their spending...  

I am hugely in debt and I really need to learn self-restraint. Please, each of you send me 100 BTC! I'm begging you! My life depends on it! Please! Send it now! If you don't help me now, my problems will only become much bigger! Think of how much more it will cost you to help me then!!! For god sakes make the right decision! Send me 100 BTC now! The faster I learn financial restraint the better all of our lives will be!

Lovely is your "report" dated July 5, 2011. Read the article I've posted a link to that is only 2 days old!

You're not seeing what's relevant here. Chavez can't get medical care in the United States or hardly anywhere else in the first world for that matter. He's a bad figure. He's not going to Cuba for medical care because it's amazing. He's going because his country's is poor and anywhere else could get him killed. Cuba does not offer the best medical care in the world just because Chavez has his doctor there.

"You get what you pay for," Mark B. McClellan, who runs Medicare and Medicaid, told me. "And we ought to be paying for better quality." ...We just are not using the power of incentives to save lives....

Joseph Britto, a former intensive-care doctor, likes to compare medicine's attitude toward mistakes with the airline industry's. At the insistence of pilots, who have the ultimate incentive not to mess up, airlines have studied their errors and nearly eliminated crashes.

"Unlike pilots," Dr. Britto said, "doctors don't go down with their planes."

----

This is probably the single best explanation of Consequences driving Responsibility that I have ever read!
The second is, "An electrical lineman's pencil does NOT come with an eraser."

Yes, Bankers should go down with their planes.
Yes, Dictators should go down with their planes.
No, Politicians should not be issued pencils with erasers.

He is a good figure for the people of Venezuela. This is why they vote and elect him for President. He is a bad figure for those guys that want to control the oil fields of Venezuela like they do with Iraq and Libya.

Except when you don't get what you pay for...

What point do you think I was making? How is needing to hold Doctors responsible for being bad at their job, and different from holding pilots responsible for being bad at theirs? I'm clearly saying, "Some doctors are good at doctoring. Some doctors suck at doctoring. You serve no one by making them go to a doctor who sucks. Even if it's for free." I'm pretty sure the head of medicare/medicaid agrees with me.

You cannot both require me to relieve someone of responsibility for their own actions and compel me to respect their opinion. There has got to be a fancy Latin name for that logic fallacy? Anyone?

Risk without accountability fallacy.

And here we get to the heart of what you believe. It doesn't matter if 45,000 people die as long as a wealthy prince can get the best care in the world.

All those countries that insure their whole populations for half the per capita price? Fuck 'em. I like it here where I can pay extra to ensure the poor die.

You almost have it right.

All those countries that insure their whole populations don't report how many died because their care was substandard to known best practices. Quite frankly, the medical establishment here discovered that problem (in the US) and it shocked the fuck out of them. Some common medical procedures had a 30% different mortality rate among different facilities. However, they all thought their rate was the common best-practice rate. Other countries later discovered the same thing.

Choosing a competent doctor is a life critical choice that I wish to retain the right to. Relinquish your right to that if you choose. If you wish to sacrifice your own care to save a buck, you have the freedom to do so. Your bad decisions do not make themselves my responsibilities.

Quite frankly I'm appalled if 45,000 people die unnecessarily. However, I don't believe that to be the case. We do have a safety net in this country. I see it work everyday. (see above) It provides health CARE like it should. It doesn't provide health INSURANCE which would be STUPID! (see above for my treatise) Yes, the existing safety net costs all of us too much. (see above for my other treatise)

But nothing you suggest seems even an attempt to solve that problem. You just seem to be advocating more steps down the road toward Greece.

Health care for all is a solvable problem. However, it does require everyone to attempt to be responsible. You cannot both require me to relieve someone of responsibility for their own actions and compel me to respect their opinion.

You keep changing accounts Atlas. First Ragnar, now I.Goldstein?

Actually you'll find that Cuba has a healthcare system and health infrastructure that would put lots of 'rich' countries to shame. Also, regarding that Cuba is the only place he can go, that is incorrect. The UK has been a safe haven for 'undesirables' to receive healthcare for years. The UK has been a safe-haven and ally to many a 'dictator'.

I already linked the study that shows they did right here in this thread in response to one of your posts.


What part of half-price do you not understand here?

https://i.imgur.com/FzHSE.jpg

(Also note that American health care costs have gone up significantly even since 2008)

I'd imagine that if all of those countries had this horrible substandard care you keep rambling on about, they'd have lower life expectancies than us, but they don't. They're higher.

It seems you're right but not at competitive prices. It's amazing what oil exports can do.

Also, to address rainingbitcoins, they'll be healthy for now; however, the systems aren't financially sustainable.

You know the U.K. has had the NHS since WWII and Canada has had UHC since the early '60s, right?

Heh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

Speaking about accountability, do you know that Cuba has one of the highest (if not the highest) life expectancy rates in both Americas? Why average lifespan in Cuba is the same (or slightly better) than the average lifespan in the U.S. and how is that corresponding to your statement about the superiority of current U.S. medicare system?

Yes because they have massive oil reserves. They have disposable income to throw at a socialized healthcare system that runs at a loss. The US doesn't have such capacity.

And this has to do with the fact that they currently pay half of what we do how exactly? We even pay more in public funds than they do and their whole damn system is public.


Cuba pays $1200 per capita to insure their people. Their life expectancy is tied with the U.S. at 78.3 years.

Either you are conflating me with someone else, or you haven't bother to read what I've written above. Perhaps something more that three lines is TL;DR.

But to clarify, I think the concept of entitlement is one of the two root causes of the problem. (See above) I don't think healthcare is a luxury. Healthcare is a service. The people who provide the service are not slaves nor are they beneath us. We have no right to compel them to work if they don't feel they are being adequately rewarded for their time. Currently, many doctors are leaving their field. They find their time better spent in other pursuits. If it continues that would cause healthcare to become a luxury. That would be a bad thing.

Clearly, I explained why US healthcare is too expensive (see above). And why that is a horribly stupid thing we should all be working to fix. It is fixable.

I don't think a mentioned Cuba at all. I did mention Europe. Both should make decisions as they see fit and be held responsible for their decisions. In Germany doctors have protested in the streets about harsh working conditions and low compensation. (see Frontline documentary on universal healthcare) Maybe Cubans are awesome. I have no idea.

The only thing I said was, I don't think "universal healthcare" guarantees "optimal healthcare". And when folks in my family get sick, I demand optimal healthcare. You are welcome to not make the same demands for yourself. But you may not deny that choice to me. I am Pro-Choice. You seem to be Pro-Meh. "You get what you get but at least we all get it together!"

Any questions?

I am not contesting anything of what you are saying. The American system sucks. All of the systems suck. They are all horribly inefficient and customer service is non-existent. If I want luxuries and extra care, I have to pay an excessive amount to get what I desire in the name of entitlement. My main problem is people can't pay fair market value for care they desire and at the time they want it. There's horrible wait-lists and it's all one-size-fits-all. It looks good on paper but they all leave a lot to be desired.

Cuba can pay whatever is necessary. Again, they have oil reserves.

Even if no system is perfectly efficient, it should be apparent from the data that the most efficient systems have the most government involvement. And the least efficient system is the one clogged with private insurance and out-of-pocket spending.

Wait times in UHC countries are comparable to the U.S., as well. Some slightly higher, some slightly lower, but all in the same ballpark.

The US has an extreme amount of government-involvement. The regulations, subsidies and provisions going towards the medical industry are of the same capacity as Europe.

I am just making one thing clear: the United States does not have private healthcare. It hasn't had it for a long time.

We do have the some choice in which government-provisioned corporation we can go to for insurance. We can fortunately choose somebody who meets our desires and accommodates our schedule albeit with a higher cost.

We all don't have to use cesspool public clinics that take weeks to get an appointment with -- yet.

We do have a mixture of public and private services, yes. So why blame the public part of that equation when countries with entirely public systems pay so much less?

You realize that the U.K. recently had a whole government upheaval based upon health care solvency concerns. Hello, Mr Cameron. Here are a few random links from the first google page that came up. There seem to be some current issues.

http://www.sourcewire.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=67094
http://www.ournhsinshropshireandtelford.nhs.uk/viewpoint/110224-capsticks.aspx
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/workforce/dh-seeks-solvency-assurances-from-nhs-employers/5014860.article

Canada in in the midst of health care reform as well. More random google results.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/10/pol-cma-report.html

The majority of respondents said they are not getting good value for money, especially compared with European countries, and they based that assessment on long waiting times for the care they need, the report said.

Discussions over private versus public health care were frequent, the report said, and support for a publicly funded system was widespread. Turnbull noted, however, that some expressed openness to private sector assistance to help alleviate some of the immediate pressures on the public system.

Participants in the dialogue agreed that Canadians need to take responsibility for their own health, but they said there is a need for "healthy public policy" to help people make healthy decisions. Better health education and support for economically disadvantaged groups were among the suggestions made and some said tax incentives should be introduced to encourage healthier choices.

Entirely public systems pay less but they aren't necessarily more efficient. Universal systems increase the cost of luxuries and private care that has desires that are not met by public services. It deprives liberty from people who usually pay for their care. It deprives them of services that they may otherwise be able to afford.

I like my extra dermatology services and rational psychiatry that doesn't try to diagnose me with a checklist. I want care suited to my individual desires at affordable, competitive prices. Not government bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists.

You're wrong. Cuba doesn't have oil reserves. Venezuela has.
The U.S. have vast oil reserves in different parts of the world. Now even Iraq, the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, is a U.S. colony! Lets not forget that Americans pay the cheapest gas prices at the gas station among all developed countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Cuba

Yes, Cuba does.

America only has 1.5 billion barrels in its reserve. Let's not forget the oil companies aren't under government control. We only pay less because we hold the oil standard currency and our oil is subsidized.

Again, just look at the prices. We already pay way more than they do before you even count private spending!

We pay more than they do in public spending because 1) we have a larger populace and 2) our country is larger in terms of land area. This adds a lot of overhead. European countries are close, small and nearly decentralized. Of course they pay less when it comes to government services.

It's apples to oranges. Their situation won't apply to us.

Alright, I highly suggest we pause this and get this whole discussion moved to Politics and Society. This is really off-topic and bad for this board. Somebody report my post.

No, Cuba doesn't. To discover an oil field and to exploit it are two quite different things! Even now (2011) Cuba is importing 100% of all the oil they consume.

Those are per capita numbers, Atlas. Larger populace doesn't enter into it. And if you want to talk population density, Australia is worse off than us in that department and still coming in at a third of our cost.

Yes; however, these oil rights enable it to run its nation mostly on credit since the oil acts as collateral. The oil reserves are highly relevant and they are keeping Cuba alive despite them not being used.

Yes it does. A larger populace adds extensive overhead costs at a federal level. You have to manage more names, more capitas and more bureaus while not even seeing a single face on a local level. To run a healthcare program at such a high federal level would be a disaster. If you take a look, you'll see the EU doesn't run its constituents healthcare for a reason while its trying to end its failing food relief program.

That's not to mention federal healthcare services would be unconstitutional.

Germany has 80 million people and they manage. They also manage to have one of the strongest economies in the world.

I understand this. However, it doesn't matter if they are paying less, when they themselves see their programs as bankrupting their government. Both do.  Following their lead will surely bankrupt ours. You can argue that it will bankrupt us slower then we are already going. But that is hardly a solution to the problem. It is merely pretending to address the problem.

By the way, which universal healthcare plan are you supporting here in the US? The one the administration recently passed? Are you claiming that gets us well down the road to 50% savings? Because the administration claims total costs will go up.

A tax burden of 40% with health services that still run at a deficit is not my idea of a successful nor sovereign country.

Somehow we're going to bankrupt ourselves by spending less than we already do. Thanks, got it.

Also, I support more of an NHS-style system. Obama's plan may have been a step in the right direction in some other time or place, but I don't trust the Democrats to take it in that direction in 21st century America. After all, there are profits to be had.


Yeah, yeah, taxes are slavery and everything must be done at a huge profit, we know.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/warning-signs-from-europe-3470/

National health care schemes in Germany and Switzerland (and many other countries) rely on the government’s power to cut deals with major industry groups, including doctors, to keep expenses down. European doctors who work in the statutory insurance market earn scaled salaries set in agreements with the government.

The result is a class of doctors that feels increasingly underpaid and overworked. German hospital doctors earn about one-fifth of their American counterparts — an average of $56,000 per year, as opposed to $268,000 in the states. When negotiations with the government fall short, the doctors behave like any other group of workers in Europe: They take to the streets.
The marches in 2006 were the largest in German history, triggered by government reforms aimed at controlling costs in the national health care system.

Only part of the problem was pay. Another problem, from the doctors’ point of view, were the so-called bonus-malus laws, which punished them for prescribing expensive drugs and rewarded them for prescribing generics. The idea was to keep down pharmaceuticals prices, but the doctors felt the hot breath of government on their necks. “This ethically objectionable bonus-malus legal gimmickry — akin to bribing physicians not to treat to the best of their ability — was one of the sparks of the doctor protest movement,” wrote Alphonse Crespo, a libertarian-minded Swiss orthopedic surgeon.

The reforms finally pushed through by Angela Merkel’s government gave Germany its current system, which uses a central fund to compensate insurance companies for patients according to the patients’ risk. The government dropped its bonus-malus rules in 2008. But Germany’s specific problems with its health care system are less relevant than their cause, which is the same as the cause of America’s crisis: ballooning costs. Doctor salaries are the least of it. The German system is full of administrative corruption within the nation’s many insurance companies.

So is insurance itself the problem?

Maybe.

Let me quote part of your wikipedia link:


Even if they have done what you're suggesting, they'd have 'a disposable income' just for the last year?! Sounds very irrelevant to what you say...


Cuba has a 'socialized' healthcare system since 1959...

It's not about profit. If you're running a country entirely on credit, you will eventually lose control of your nation. You are no longer sovereign but only under the whims of who controls your money supply.

What should come first is the people's independence. All else can sustainably come after.

Germany has a mixture of public and private insurance, but it's about 80% public.

It doesn't matter what is happening with the oil reserves. The fact is they are there and are under Cuba's territory. They have value just being there because oil is scarce and it continues to deplete. They will be used eventually.

Again, they act as collateral for lending nations. Cuba is running mostly on credit. If Cuba fails to pay its debts, the lending countries get their oil reserves. It's very simple.

Yes, Cuba has had a socialized healthcare system since 1959 but it hasn't always worked as it does now.  

Yes, exactly. General Motors was going broke fast. Chrysler was going broke slower. Are you trying to convince me that Chrysler was setting a great example that GM should be encouraged to follow?



Yay! We agree on some thing! There exist proposed national solutions that everyone sees won't solve the problem! Woot!


According to a really interesting Frontline documentary on universal healthcare, Germany has a two tier insurance system. The public buys inexpensive insurance that companies are sworn not to take any profit on. Then they make their profits selling supplemental insurance.

However, Doctors protest in the streets about making less that taxi drivers. The health care system as a whole runs in the red. There are continual cost overruns and the whole thing is increasingly supplemented by the general tax fund.

In fact according to Frontline *advocates* of universal healthcare, not a single UHC program on the planet runs in the black. Not the old ones. Not the new ones. Not insurance based ones. Not single payer ones.

Is there a root cause? Yes there is.

The fact is those reserves have value since 2010! If you say this is what helps Cuba run their healthcare system you have to explain how this system was run in the period 1959-2010 to the effect that the lifespan in Cuba is even slightly higher than in the US?

Currently 17% of the GNP of the USA is spent for healthcare! This % has doubled during the last 20 years (continues to increase!) and is way ahead of every other nation on this Planet. Such a massive % of nation's wealth spent without any productivity is an indicator that something in the U.S. healthcare system is terribly wrong. The government should find ways to demolish this monopoly effectively established by healthcare and big pharma companies sucking taxpayer dollars. That is it and it is a big test for this Government!

How is different from having less taxes BUT having to spend more in "health insurances"?

At least the public healthcare system doesn't look to make PROFIT.

Private healthcare=they will keep using old machines cause "why buy new ones and SPEND? Oh it work better? Who cares, i'm private, profit profit"

The government is what is supporting the monopoly in the first place. Again, we do not have a free nor private healthcare system. We haven't had one since the 20s.

Nobody would spend more in healthcare services if people paid out of their pocket. Some would have to actually work to pay for it but that should be expected. Prices would be competitive to consumer desires so your last example wouldn't happen. If old machines didn't meet people's needs, people wouldn't go to clinics who didn't update their technology. The only companies who would make profit are the ones that people like.

It worked magnificently in early 1900s America. Small groups of poor people would hire their own private doctor for pennies on the dollar of today.  However, eventually some lobbied for restriction and look at the mess we have...

Of course there is a better solution. I wrote extensively about the root causes of the problem. Not a single person is contesting these causes. To find a solution you have to mitigate the cause of the problem. You can't exacerbate the causes and expect it to help.



I am sincerely sorry to hear of your health problems. I am glad they were treated effectively. Clearly you are not part of the root cause of our systems problems. You took responsibility and paid for the services you received.

You probably payed more than your "fair" share because the root cause (others who felt entitled not to pay) didn't pay for their services. We should all be horrified that you had to suffer unduly for the irresponsibility of others.



I am sincerely sorry to hear of your employment problems as well. Again, I think you are likely suffering unduly because of the irresponsibility of others. In this case, it was likely fund managers, bankers, loan brokers, appraisers, title companies, real estate agents who acted against irresponsibly in encouraging the boom which burst into recession.



I in no way want you to get sick again. Ever. But if that unfortunate circumstance should arise, I want your doctors to be great. Period. If you are sick, you should get the most effective treatment available. Period.

The only thing left to consider is how much of the cost for that treatment should be your obligation. I want to say a few things very clearly.
1. None of the extra overhead that comes from the irresponsibility parties should be your responsibility.
2. None of the bloat that comes from unnecessary procedures should be your responsibility.
3. No excessive markup going to anonymous insurance companies or government bureaucracies should be your responsibility.
4. No excessive service provider profits only obtainable because you had to "consent under duress" should be your responsibility.

So that just leave the true expenses that you or your family affirmatively consented to. That is the theoretical maximum cost it is even conceivable that should become your obligation to pay.

Now, let's say I was god and I could say with certainty that you will live (X) months and will incur ($Y) in above medical expenses. What should your "insurance" rate be?  Would ($Y/X) be fair?

If that is too high, who *must* be obligated to pay the remainder ($Y) and why?

I can't answer that question for you, because I don't even know you. Say I did know you. I might decide that I personally should carry some of your burden. You are indeed a worth soul and I would be honored to help out. Perhaps you are an awful neighbor who killed my dog and tormented me every waking moment. *Must* I be required to pay so you can return to torment me some more?

This is why questions of "community" weight so important. People who spend their lives benefiting others will likely have many people willing to step in. Those who spend their lives maliciously will find themselves among many hesitant to help.


Clearly you understand this principle already. Do you think that in a case of your extreme hardship, those people you have been "a good citizen" among will not step up?

If that is true. The government can't save us.

Now this is worthy of a fallacy.

The "People don't care so we need government." Fallacy

If people don't give a damn, the government won't since it (should) act on the desires of the people.

Comparing early 1900 technology to 2011? Nice, go heal yourself with 1900 machines. No wait, they HAD 0 MACHINES back then. They didn't even discover penicillin. An infection->you are dead.

Also the bolded part is false. New machines=moar expensive=i cannot spend so much, better go to the cheaper hospital even if they use older things. Just look at how things work. Normal people doesn't know about machines and what else, otherwise they would be doctor or engineers. Hospitals are better spending money in marketing than in useful things.

The mess usa have is cause it's a mixed things of private shit and insurances. If you are poor->no one heal you. But you STILL pay a lot of taxes, for what purposes, don't know.

With a decent public system you would have a good healthcare for EVERYONE, and the money would actually be used better cause you could not make profit out of it. Of course you need to have some systems to check how much every hospital spend to avoid absurd wastes
In europe countries manage to do that and our public system is often (always?) better than a loooot of private systems of other nations (who said usa?)

In b4 greece: greece fail is a problem of corruption and incompetence but that would ruin a private system too. If the government is corrupted then how long do you think a private system would last?

Oh and also what about middle age healthcare? Sure back then everyone died for everything but i mean, feudal system was awesome, it worked for centuries!

I am done. There is no point in arguing anymore. None of my fellow debaters here are interested in understanding nor considering my position. I don't want to win. I want to learn and I've considered what has been said to its fullest extent. The logic boils down to the idea that the government is incorruptible and actually cares. I have yet to see that historically proven.

So I leave with an afterword by George Carlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hWiBt-pqp0E#t=491s

No system work  in a corrupted government...

Every government in history has been corrupted. When you have a monopoly on force there is no accountability. It's an inherent flaw in the whole paradigm.

Exactly! A government is too big to fail. That is why it should have as little power as necessary. Because indeed it will fail. When smaller organizations fail we a glad to be rid of them and others step into take their place.

When governments fail, like I said earlier "community" is always important. But this time it is the European Community they have to rely in to step up and help. There is no world safety net to fall back on if Greece happened to be a bad neighbor.

Healthcare should be not for profit. Health insurance should also be not for profit. Do you really need your kidney removed or does the doctor need to make a boat payment? That doesn't mean that you can't have hospitals and doctors that demand millions in compensation if there is a market for their talent. They can even have cash only hospitals with gold faucets and 7 star chefs preparing their soups and jello.

Places like Australia have a multi-tiered system. We have private as well as public hospitals and you can access health services through government health insurance, private health insurance or even self-pay.  We do have resort like private hospitals, but we don't have the population to support those private hospitals being tertiary care facilities even in our most populous cities.  That's why the major trauma centres and tertiary care units are all located at public hospitals - which are free to everyone (even if you're privately insured, you're not obligated to use your insurance at a public hospital or when you see a private doctor).  

Many public hospitals now private hospitals on the same grounds which means that if you have private insurance or are prepared to pay out of pocket and you don't need to be in a high dependency unit, you can opt for more luxurious accommodation during your stay.  Our private health insurance is cheaper because everyone is already insured at a basic level by the government so private insurers are only covering the "gap" between the fee for service and the government rebate.

There's nothing to stop primary care doctors here charging whatever they like for a consultation - it's just that the patient will have to cover the difference between their fee and the health insurance (government or private) rebate.  

Our system probably wouldn't scale well to somewhere with a population the size of the US.

Pretty bloody tough these days.  And housing costs are ridiculous in the major cities, whether you're looking at buying or renting.  Electricity costs have sky-rocketed here too over the last few years and those two factors combined have a definite impact on most people's standard of living.

I'm not sure why everyone keeps insisting I didn't write this.


You don't seem to be disagreeing with me at all.


Again, you don't seem to be saying anything different from me. If people get sick, we care for them. Period.



*Why* you want to care for the sick is unimportant to me. It is nice that you care though. So do I.



Again, people get sick. People get care. The responsibility of payment for services rendered should be settled afterward.


I am not that cruel. However, you quite clearly pointed out that you do indeed know that others ARE that cruel!


I know you italicized "my", but in reality these people are not leaching off "your" labor. They are leaching off "everyone's" labor. And conversely, they are paying nothing but lip service to the fact that the "mentally retarded or physically handicapped" aren't being cared for.

If you ask these leaches to get a job and pay their fair share to help the "mentally retarded or physically handicapped" what do you expect their response to be? How in all sanity can you expect to convince them that they are "entitled" not to pay for their own care, BUT they are *required* to pay for other's care? If you can indeed make that case, I will bow down and worship everything you write.


But obviously you can't, because rhetorically you think those people should be locked up. Locked up but well cared for it seems. I guess that is slightly more reasonable than dowsing these folks in gasoline and setting them on fire.

But I myself am not so cruel.


You can not fix a system, without fixing the people who make up the system. There is a fix. It is called personal responsibility.

Only those who consider you as a family will be the one give a damn to help you.

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Health Care is so important and i find it unbelievable that their are still countries without a proper public health care system. Seems like you guys in the US have to rely on natural supplements like Kanna: https://liftmode.com/blog/kanna-high-weed/
Am i correct? I mean natural supplements are certainly not a bad thing, but having to rely on them completely is scary to me.