CNN Liberal Stooge: British Health Care is Superior Because We Pay 50% income tax and 20% sales tax

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I love how they say it costs an arm and a leg over there still, but just because cost isn't thought about up front, makes it more 'efficient.'

I'm sorry, but at the end of the day it's not the "private insurance" monster that's the problem it's the COST period. COST. If a procedure is COSTing tens of thousands or more, then THAT is your problem that needs to be addressed.

It doesn't matter whether you're paying with some "public" tax raping plan or private insurance plan. Efficiency is obviously an issue on both. Trying to argue that a public plan is efficient when you're paying 50% of your income and 20% of the cost of goods is absurd on its face. Yeah, the administrative costs might be lower, but at what cost are they lower as well. There is a COST always associated with things of this nature and people seem to ignore that because they get "handed" their not-so-free-after-all health care.

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http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/zakaria-private-health-insurance-is-not-efficient/?hpt=hp_bn5

At King's College Hospital in London, Dr. Nigel Heaton performs a liver transplant surgery - with a live donor. A young man is giving part of his liver to his younger brother. The liver is cut in half, with one part for the younger brother and the other part staying in the donor.

As Dr. Heaton says, "The liver’s a remarkable organ. It’s made up of eight segments, so you can take pieces of the liver, and it’ll function perfectly well. The transplant costs tens of thousands of dollars, but under Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the patient doesn't pay a thing.

Heaton continues, "When patients come to us, we only evaluate them from the point of view of their need. Do they need a liver transplant? The cost never comes into it. As a surgeon, I love that because it means the focus is on the care of that I can deliver."

Dr. Clair Gerada, the chair of Britain's Royal College of General Practitioners says:

"Nobody pays a doctor’s bill with the NHS. People will go their entire life without paying a single upfront cost. Our health service is fair. It means that irrespective of what you afford, irrespective of your illness, you will be able to access health care."

Compare that to the U.S., where an estimated 137,000 people died over seven years because they were uninsured. Of course, the Brits do pay for their health care in another way - with taxes. their sales tax is a whopping 20% and income taxes are as high as 50%.

All of that money feeds a health care behemoth. The NHS is Europe's largest employer, with well over 1 million people on the payroll. So you'd think it would be inefficient.

T.R. Reid, a former overseas bureau chief with The Washington Post toured the world's health care systems for his recent book, The Healing of America. Reid says:

"That seems sensible, right? The private sector can do things more efficiently? It doesn't work in health care. The least efficient payers in the world are the American private insurance companies. They have administrative costs of 20 to 30%. That's a 30% tax on every dollar you spend on health care. Britain is totally socialized medicine [and its] administrative costs [are] 5%. Canada is private doctors and public payers - 6% administrative costs. So it turns out, for some reason in health care, governments are doing this more efficiently than our private sector."

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

I love how they say it costs an arm and a leg over there still, but just because cost isn't thought about up front, makes it more 'efficient.'

I'm sorry, but at the end of the day it's not the "private insurance" monster that's the problem it's the COST period. COST. If a procedure is COSTing tens of thousands or more, then THAT is your problem that needs to be addressed.

It doesn't matter whether you're paying with some "public" tax raping plan or private insurance plan. Efficiency is obviously an issue on both. Trying to argue that a public plan is efficient when you're paying 50% of your income and 20% of the cost of goods is absurd on its face. Yeah, the administrative costs might be lower, but at what cost are they lower as well. There is a COST always associated with things of this nature and people seem to ignore that because they get "handed" their not-so-free-after-all health care.

-------------

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/zakaria-private-health-insurance-is-not-efficient/?hpt=hp_bn5

At King's College Hospital in London, Dr. Nigel Heaton performs a liver transplant surgery - with a live donor. A young man is giving part of his liver to his younger brother. The liver is cut in half, with one part for the younger brother and the other part staying in the donor.

As Dr. Heaton says, "The liver’s a remarkable organ. It’s made up of eight segments, so you can take pieces of the liver, and it’ll function perfectly well. The transplant costs tens of thousands of dollars, but under Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the patient doesn't pay a thing.

Heaton continues, "When patients come to us, we only evaluate them from the point of view of their need. Do they need a liver transplant? The cost never comes into it. As a surgeon, I love that because it means the focus is on the care of that I can deliver."

Dr. Clair Gerada, the chair of Britain's Royal College of General Practitioners says:

"Nobody pays a doctor’s bill with the NHS. People will go their entire life without paying a single upfront cost. Our health service is fair. It means that irrespective of what you afford, irrespective of your illness, you will be able to access health care."

Compare that to the U.S., where an estimated 137,000 people died over seven years because they were uninsured. Of course, the Brits do pay for their health care in another way - with taxes. their sales tax is a whopping 20% and income taxes are as high as 50%.

All of that money feeds a health care behemoth. The NHS is Europe's largest employer, with well over 1 million people on the payroll. So you'd think it would be inefficient.

T.R. Reid, a former overseas bureau chief with The Washington Post toured the world's health care systems for his recent book, The Healing of America. Reid says:

"That seems sensible, right? The private sector can do things more efficiently? It doesn't work in health care. The least efficient payers in the world are the American private insurance companies. They have administrative costs of 20 to 30%. That's a 30% tax on every dollar you spend on health care. Britain is totally socialized medicine [and its] administrative costs [are] 5%. Canada is private doctors and public payers - 6% administrative costs. So it turns out, for some reason in health care, governments are doing this more efficiently than our private sector."

I think you missed the part where the US system has 20-30% admin costs to the NHS' 5%.

As to the taxes, well it all depends. In the UK, I was paying about 7.6% in NI and 12.8% in Income tax

Here when I first came back (i'm using that figure because it was relatively close to my UK pay) I paid 5.8% in SS and Medicare and 13.5% in Fed and State Tax.

Those are pretty close right? And I haven't even added the cost of private healthcare yet.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Sousuke

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Council tax is also (generally speaking) a lot less than property tax in most US states. I think I pay roughly the same in taxes overall. And then pay for health insurance.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Council tax is also (generally speaking) a lot less than property tax in most US states. I think I pay roughly the same in taxes overall. And then pay for health insurance.

Hmm, well the one difference there I suppose is that a renter in the UK still has to pay council tax and TV tax. Though the council provides some basic services like rubbish collection and sewer.

[Pooky 3,784]

I think you missed the part where the US system has 20-30% admin costs to the NHS' 5%.

As to the taxes, well it all depends. In the UK, I was paying about 7.6% in NI and 12.8% in Income tax

Here when I first came back (i'm using that figure because it was relatively close to my UK pay) I paid 5.8% in SS and Medicare and 13.5% in Fed and State Tax.

Those are pretty close right? And I haven't even added the cost of private healthcare yet.

Remarkable how the figure of 50% for income tax figures so highly. Methinks someone needs to do some more homework about the UK tax system, before they continue making erroneous assertions.

Why not, instead, compare healthcare as a percentage of GDP and find out how hopelessly inefficient the US healthcare industry is as a whole, versus the remainder of the developed world.

It's a pity the Obamacare sham does absolutely nothing to address this inconvenient fact, not to mention the 10 year cost estimate has just doubled, according the CBO. Looks like Pelosi was right. Congress needed to pass it, so that the American people could find out just how bad a piece of legislation it was.