Universal Health System is Doomed to Failure

[Plane]

It amazes me that a public pooling of resources is looked upon with so much disdain, whereas a private pooling of resources (which essentially is all an insurance company is) is looked upon with such respect by some.

  It is more volentary , do you prefer to be told what is going to happen or do you prefer to be asked ?

[sirs]

It amazes me that a public pooling of resources is looked upon with so much disdain, whereas a private pooling of resources (which essentially is all an insurance company is) is looked upon with such respect by some.

It is more volentary , do you prefer to be told what is going to happen or do you prefer to be asked ?

Well Summized, Plane     

[Universe Prince]

What gives your plan the moral highground here Prince? I'm not seeing it.

Possibly nothing. But I am not a fan of the notion that people who care want socialized health care. I'm sure that some people, you included, who want socialized health care do want it out of a concern for others. But I don't like the implication that concern for others=wanting socialized health care. I don't believe you intentionally implied it, and maybe this is inference on my part, but it always seems to be the underlying notion of the "how can you object to socialized health care" question. And too often what I see played out in other discussions about socialized health care or welfare or similar programs is that eventually the focus shifts from concern about others' wellbeing to concern about wealthy people having too much money and how unfair that is and how the wealthy need to be forced to fork over more money. What it comes to be about is not helping people but about making sure other people pay for being so unfair as to have more. And if taking money from other people is the goal of how we're going to use government in the name of government representing the people, then I will not support it.

Would having a decentralized health care network be so frakkin' abhorent to you that you refuse to consider trying to help make it happen?

Quite frankly, I don't think it will or can work. It lacks any coherent pooling of resources and management thereof.

No, it just lacks a centrally controlled pooling of resources. It leaves the pooling and the management down closer to the level where people live.

Whereas, with the NHS (as an example) it has been proven, over time, to work effectively in providing care to the people, even to the poorest and most disadvantaged.

Has it? Last I checked, NHS was struggling to balance the books, was neglecting the elderly and had one of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe. I'm not so sure NHS is a model to look up to.

Your loose network of charities and generous doctors has never been proven to do anything more than help with a few cases here and there, which has great merit, please don't get me wrong - but in terms of equality and getting care to everyone who needs it - it just does not hold water.

Maybe because it hasn't been tried in the manner I'm talking about. We can send doctors and nurses to do charity work in Africa, but we can't make a from-the-ground-up network here? We should be ashamed of ourselves.

You have not shown otherwise.

Kinda difficult for me to give you hard data when the idea hasn't even been tried yet.

You've given theoretical, ivory tower arguments.

Ivory tower? I'm trying to address this issue in the most practical, starting-at-ground-level manner I know how. I'm trying to propose a flexible, adaptable system that would not only help people get the care they need but create the sort of dynamic in the medical industry that would drive prices down over the long term, resulting in a stable system of more affordable health care. How the frak is that ivory tower? To me the impractical, ivory tower solution is the top-down, centrally planned and controlled, socialized health care. As I look at the results of it in other countries, it seems entirely impractical as a long term solution.

I've heard complaining that the taxes aren't transparent enough and that states must pay for this through sales taxes - which I find a purely puerile and bizarre argument.

I believe the argument is that state or local governments are in a much better position to create health care systems that meet the needs of the people. Which is neither puerile nor bizarre. Do you think Washington D.C. is going to create a flexible and responsive system that meets the health care needs of people in Wyoming as well as the people in New York City? Don't you think a more localized approach would be more responsive to day to day working issues that will surely crop up? And many people think sales tax is one of the least intrusive ways to tax people because the rates are generally kept fairly low, and wealthy people are, by the very nature of the system and society, going to end up paying more. How is that puerile or bizarre?

What I have not heard is why other nations cover their entire population with less expense per patient and as a percentage of GDP than the United States, yet socialised medical care is some sort of nationalised evil that must increase costs because a few tiny economic professors said so.

I don't know who is claiming it increases costs. I'm not. I'm claiming it doesn't reduce costs or stop them from climbing. It artificially reduces the price people pay, but that is not the same as reducing the actual costs of the care.

What I have not heard is why most Canadians, Brits, and Swedes like their healthcare systems and find the American system to be backward. Meanwhile, arguments here try and claim the opposite is true - again in the face of all available data and reason.

Then again, most Americans are, in poll after poll, satisfied with the health care they receive. I'm sure that people do like getting health care for what seems to be free, but that doesn't mean there are not problems in those systems that we would be well advised to acknowledge and address before we adopt such a system here in the U.S.

Lastly, I have not heard a counter proposal that is proven to lower costs and provide equality in healthcare for everyone. I'm impressed that you have an alternative system in mind Prince, and I respect your point of view over many others, but you have no real evidence of its value. You have a patchwork system already in place that fails to do what you are asking it to do in much greater numbers.

No, I have a starting place from which to begin a more serious and more connected network that will grow to fill in precisely where you think the system that exists now is failing. In a nutshell, that is the plan. You're right, have I no evidence it will work, but then I have no way to get evidence if it is never tried. I have no means to do more research, but I'm hoping I can find people who do. Not that I would propose to be in charge. But hopefully I can get others to see the value in trying.

It amazes me that a public pooling of resources is looked upon with so much disdain, whereas a private pooling of resources (which essentially is all an insurance company is) is looked upon with such respect by some.

For one thing, the pooling of resources you're talking about is involuntary. An insurance company, on the other hand, is entirely voluntary, except maybe in Massachusetts.

[Universe Prince]

Denouncing American citizenship is easy enough. Just cut your passport in half and mail it to the nearest embassy. Taxation problem solved.

U.S. taxation perhaps, assuming I want to surrender my citizenship (which I don't, at least not yet). I doubt it would solve all taxation issues.