Hillary says she has never been in favor of socialized medicine

[GaryC 7]

At what cost to people who are working?

Comparing the US system to the UK or any other country ... apples and oranges.

Either way we all pay, but with what I now pay through my employer for health insurance with very few actual benefits, I'd much rather pay into something that will provide affordable care for all. My copayments are ridiculous and I believe children should receive health care with no copayments. Children should be covered 100%. Period. End of story.

Well said!

how do you propose we pay for that? more taxes?

I'm currently paying about $250 per month for health insurance. If we can have universal coverage that costs me less than that in added tax, most of us will be saving money rather than it being an added financial burden.

Your forgetting how the government works Steven. It may start out at around $250/month in added taxes. (that means my cost will double BTW) But after our greedy lawmakers get done with it we will end up paying $500/month in extra taxes and have a bloated useless system that serves no one. Just look at what they did with Social Security and Medicare. Do I want that? No way!!! That is the problem with your line of thinking. You think that we will all pay less, everyone will be covered and you will get whatever service you need in a timely manner. That isn't what will happen. You will end up paying more, doctors will run away from the system because they will make less money, hospitals will have to cut back on new and expensive equipment and procedures because the government will not fund it, you will have some bureaucrat telling you what treatment you will get instead of your doctor, you will wait for operations that need to be done right now and in the end everyone will lose. NHC is not something we want.

Edited August 11, 2007 by GaryC

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'd say a lot depends on what the actual proposals are - but to say that the current system works perfectly or even (well) would be a gross understatement. If you don't use healthcare services - what is your monthly premium actually buying you? How is that money actually being used? We already have a massive and convoluted bureaucracy.

I haven't seen anyone promoting what would be classically considered - socialised healthcare. Seems to me there's a lot of irrational fear about that - based on... what exactly? Are people actually looking at the specific merits of the proposals or merely reacting knee-jerk style to 'reform' as though anything but the current system = socialized?

Do you believe that there should be no reform (at all) of the current healthcare system?

Edited August 11, 2007 by Number 6

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It may start out at around $250/month in added taxes. (that means my cost will double BTW)

The $130.00 you pay, Gary, is just a portion of what your insurance premium actually is. Your employer picks up the rest of it. A good health plan for a family costs around $500 - $700 / month depending on where you live. Go out and get some quotes on your own or take a look at a COBRA notice if you ever had one. That'll tell you what the insurance company collects for your plan.

So, rather than double your cost, you'd lower your actual cost. Presumably, your employer would pay you what he now pays to the insurance company on your behalf.

I said it time and again, the US health care system is the most expensive and least efficient in the industrialized world. It - the privately run system - has built up a wasteful administrative apparatus that makes any government waste pale in comparison. Upwards of 30% of our health care expenses go to pay for purely administrative functions. For red tape. The government run systems in the US have about a 2% ratio.

[GaryC 7]

I'd say a lot depends on what the actual proposals are - but to say that the current system works perfectly or even (well) would be a gross understatement. If you don't use healthcare services - what is your monthly premium actually buying you? How is that money actually being used? We already have a massive and convoluted bureaucracy.

I haven't seen anyone promoting what would be classically considered - socialised healthcare. Seems to me there's a lot of irrational fear about that - based on... what exactly? Are people actually looking at the specific merits of the proposals or merely reacting knee-jerk style to 'reform' as though anything but the current system = socialized?

Do you believe that there should be no reform (at all) of the current healthcare system?

I didn't say the current system in perfect. I am saying the cure is worse than the problem. But I can say that they system we have now is working well for me. And it always has worked well for me.

Your (not you specifically but those that advocate NHC in general) also working under the assumption that health care is some sort of a God given right. It isn't. It never has been either. It is something that is to be earned and worked for. I do not want my money going to pay for someone else's health care. You may think I am heartless by saying that but that is what I feel. If health care is a right then what is next? Everyone should have the right to own a house? Then everyone gets a "free" house from the government? I know that my example may not really apply but I wanted to make a comment on our entitlement mindset that we seem to be getting in this country. No one is entitled to anything. Call me selfish if you like, I don't care. I earned what I have and it pizzes me off when someone else wants me to give them something just because they feel entitled to it.

[GaryC 7]

It may start out at around $250/month in added taxes. (that means my cost will double BTW)

The $130.00 you pay, Gary, is just a portion of what your insurance premium actually is. Your employer picks up the rest of it. A good health plan for a family costs around $500 - $700 / month depending on where you live. Go out and get some quotes on your own or take a look at a COBRA notice if you ever had one. That'll tell you what the insurance company collects for your plan.

So, rather than double your cost, you'd lower your actual cost. Presumably, your employer would pay you what he now pays to the insurance company on your behalf.

I said it time and again, the US health care system is the most expensive and least efficient in the industrialized world. It - the privately run system - has built up a wasteful administrative apparatus that makes any government waste pale in comparison. Upwards of 30% of our health care expenses go to pay for purely administrative functions. For red tape. The government run systems in the US have about a 2% ratio.

Sorry, your going to have to back that one up. Our government is bloated and wasteful. It couldn't run a lemonaid stand right. I don't trust it to run my health care.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Out of curiosity what would you like to see as a viable reform to the current system?

As to whether the system works for you - does it bother you exactly how that $130 is actually spent?

Edited August 11, 2007 by Number 6

[natty bumppo 297]

While we are talking about NHC ... lets also nationalize Auto Insurance and Life Insurance

Same thought process ...

[thetreble 19]

I'd say a lot depends on what the actual proposals are - but to say that the current system works perfectly or even (well) would be a gross understatement. If you don't use healthcare services - what is your monthly premium actually buying you? How is that money actually being used? We already have a massive and convoluted bureaucracy.

I haven't seen anyone promoting what would be classically considered - socialised healthcare. Seems to me there's a lot of irrational fear about that - based on... what exactly? Are people actually looking at the specific merits of the proposals or merely reacting knee-jerk style to 'reform' as though anything but the current system = socialized?

Do you believe that there should be no reform (at all) of the current healthcare system?

I didn't say the current system in perfect. I am saying the cure is worse than the problem. But I can say that they system we have now is working well for me. And it always has worked well for me.

Your (not you specifically but those that advocate NHC in general) also working under the assumption that health care is some sort of a God given right. It isn't. It never has been either. It is something that is to be earned and worked for. I do not want my money going to pay for someone else's health care. You may think I am heartless by saying that but that is what I feel. If health care is a right then what is next? Everyone should have the right to own a house? Then everyone gets a "free" house from the government? I know that my example may not really apply but I wanted to make a comment on our entitlement mindset that we seem to be getting in this country. No one is entitled to anything. Call me selfish if you like, I don't care. I earned what I have and it pizzes me off when someone else wants me to give them something just because they feel entitled to it.

Gary, I understand what you are saying but this post is a bit of a hyperbole. Now are you are saying that socialized medicine just leads to...communism?

Maybe no one is "entitled" to healthcare, as you say. But I guess coming form Canada, our thought process is that yes, all Canadians (citizens and PRs) are entitled to healthcare. Why shouldn't they/we be? And furthermore, why shouldn't children be entitled to healthcare? They are not old enough to work or earn their way into healthcare just yet.

Do you know what it cost me to treat a throat infection in the US before I had insurance? 800 dollars. For STREP throat. I was just traveling here and happened to get sick...but almost 1000 dollars for a swab test and waiting in a waiting room? Come on, don't you think that is a tiny bit ridiculous?

Natty-Sorry. I don't understand the relation between HEALTH and AUTO insurance. No country with socialized medicine has such things and I really don't see how health and auto insurance can be put on the same page.

Edited August 11, 2007 by thetreble

[natty bumppo 297]

Do you know what it cost me to treat a throat infection in the US before I had insurance? 800 dollars. For STREP throat. I was just traveling here and happened to get sick...but almost 1000 dollars for a swab test and waiting in an waiting room? Come on, don't you think that is a tiny bit ridiculous?

Natty-Sorry. I don't understand the relation between HEALTH and AUTO insurance. No country with socialized medicine has such things and I really don't see how health and auto insurance can be put on the same page.

What would it cost for a non-Canadian citizen to have the same procedure performed in Canada?

Insurance is insurance. You pay auto insurance for the same reason ... yes ?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It may start out at around $250/month in added taxes. (that means my cost will double BTW)

The $130.00 you pay, Gary, is just a portion of what your insurance premium actually is. Your employer picks up the rest of it. A good health plan for a family costs around $500 - $700 / month depending on where you live. Go out and get some quotes on your own or take a look at a COBRA notice if you ever had one. That'll tell you what the insurance company collects for your plan.

So, rather than double your cost, you'd lower your actual cost. Presumably, your employer would pay you what he now pays to the insurance company on your behalf.

I said it time and again, the US health care system is the most expensive and least efficient in the industrialized world. It - the privately run system - has built up a wasteful administrative apparatus that makes any government waste pale in comparison. Upwards of 30% of our health care expenses go to pay for purely administrative functions. For red tape. The government run systems in the US have about a 2% ratio.

Sorry, your going to have to back that one up. Our government is bloated and wasteful. It couldn't run a lemonaid stand right. I don't trust it to run my health care.

Look it up, Gary. Google is your friend. You'll find that the best even the private insurance lobby can do is apply some fuzzy math to bring the red tape of the private system within reasonable range of Medicare. Not equal and certainly not less - just close. The numbers are there. All over the place. No other country spends as much on health care covering only portions of the population and no other country spends as much on health care red tape as the US. But since you asked:

Universal coverage costs too much. No—what costs too much is the system we have now. In 2005, the United States spent 15.3 percent of gross domestic product on health care for only some of us. France spent 10.7 percent and covered everyone. The French comparison is good because its system works very much like Medicare-for-all. The other European countries, all with universal coverage, spent less than France.

Why are U.S. costs off the charts? Partly because we don't bargain with providers for a universal price. Partly because of the money that health insurers spend on marketing and screening people in or out. Medicare's overhead is just 1.5 percent, compared with 13 to 16 percent in the private sector. John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health-care consultant, says that the health insurers' overhead came to $120 billion last year, of which $40 billion was profit. By comparison, it would cost $54 billion to cover all the uninsured.

MSNBC

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

While we are talking about NHC ... lets also nationalize Auto Insurance and Life Insurance

Same thought process ...

Not even close.

Can you distinguish between a want and a need?

[natty bumppo 297]

While we are talking about NHC ... lets also nationalize Auto Insurance and Life Insurance

Same thought process ...

Not even close.

Can you distinguish between a want and a need?

I need to drive to a health care facility (no public transportation near me)

[Dan J 277]

Gary, your eating the propaganda if you think its going to be more expensive. Lets compare the US and Japan.

Percentage of GDP spent on health care

US: 16%

Japan: 7%

Ranking in quality

US: 24 (After Isreal and Germany)

Japan: 1

Ranking in Distribution

US: 32

Japan: 3

Responsiveness

US: 1

Japan: 6

Overall Ranking

US: 37

Japan: 10

So Gary, we spend way way more than any other country in the world. But we are unable to provide the best quality care or even any care for our citizens. We are far behind all other developed countries. Unless you can justify why we need to spend so much more money, Ill send you an invoice for half of my insurance premiums each month.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's inevitable that we will have universal coverage here in the states...it's just a matter of time.

Edited August 11, 2007 by Mister Fancypants

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Can State Governments Set Up Universal Health Care on Their Own?

By Ezra Klein, Washington Monthly

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system," Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once mused, "that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." Well, quite. These days we practically expect the states to try their hand at fixing tricky national problems before the federal government steps in. So to many observers, when several states recently turned their attention to providing health care for the uninsured -- one of the thorniest domestic problems of all -- it looked like cause for considerable optimism.

For a start, both Massachusetts (which passed a near-universal plan last year) and California (which is seriously debating one) are trying something relatively new: individual mandates that require every person in the state to have health insurance. The fact that Democratic legislatures have pushed Republican governors -- one a presidential candidate (Mitt Romney), the other a celebrity (Arnold Schwarzenegger) -- to back the notion of universal care has given this perennial liberal dream a bipartisan cachet. It has also helped revive the national conversation around universal health care by moving the discussion from airy, moral exhortations to practical examples of possible paths forward. In fact, the leading Democratic presidential candidates have all committed themselves to universal health reform, some with plans that seem more than a little influenced by those statewide R&D centers. The laboratories of democracy appear to be in fine working order.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/59047/