|
On June 22 2011 12:02 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 11:58 seiferoth10 wrote: What I gathered from your post is that doctors shouldn't bother treating people with a low percentage of the treatment to be effective. I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore, but that statement in itself is ridiculous.
Let's say there's a treatment with a 1% probability of extending my life for a month. Let's say it costs $10 million. I don't care if you're the smartest man in the world, taxpayers should not be paying for something like that. Doctors don't necessarily need to worry about costs, but they should operate in a regulatory environment that does care about costs. If the doctor isn't going to care, then at least don't allow such treatments to be funded by taxpayer monies.
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of public healthcare? The purpose of public healthcare is to split the cost of ridiculously priced procedures among the public so that they become affordable. If you're going to say who can and cannot benefit from public healthcare, then that isn't really public. The solution I see is to raise taxes until healthcare can fund itself. After all, that's public healthcare right: if you're relatively healthy you actually get screwed.
|
On June 22 2011 12:15 orn wrote: Instead of spending billions of dollars finding easier and more efficient ways to kill people, why not spend a few billion to save the lives of your own citizens America?
Killing people is good for business. And when you are done killing people you can sell the rights to rebuild the country to your friends.
|
On June 22 2011 12:19 Tremendous wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 12:15 orn wrote: Instead of spending billions of dollars finding easier and more efficient ways to kill people, why not spend a few billion to save the lives of your own citizens America? Killing people is good for business. And when you are done killing people you can sell the rights to rebuild the country to your friends. Who says killing people doesn't give people back home a better quality of life? Most technological advancements happen DURING war.
|
why should i have to pay for someone else's health care?
|
On June 22 2011 12:22 Greatness wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 12:19 Tremendous wrote:On June 22 2011 12:15 orn wrote: Instead of spending billions of dollars finding easier and more efficient ways to kill people, why not spend a few billion to save the lives of your own citizens America? Killing people is good for business. And when you are done killing people you can sell the rights to rebuild the country to your friends. Who says killing people doesn't give people back home a better quality of life? Most technological advancements happen DURING war.
wow... just... wow
|
On June 22 2011 12:19 seiferoth10 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 12:02 domovoi wrote:On June 22 2011 11:58 seiferoth10 wrote: What I gathered from your post is that doctors shouldn't bother treating people with a low percentage of the treatment to be effective. I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore, but that statement in itself is ridiculous.
Let's say there's a treatment with a 1% probability of extending my life for a month. Let's say it costs $10 million. I don't care if you're the smartest man in the world, taxpayers should not be paying for something like that. Doctors don't necessarily need to worry about costs, but they should operate in a regulatory environment that does care about costs. If the doctor isn't going to care, then at least don't allow such treatments to be funded by taxpayer monies. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of public healthcare? The purpose of public healthcare is to split the cost of ridiculously priced procedures among the public so that they become affordable. If you're going to say who can and cannot benefit from public healthcare, then that isn't really public. The solution I see is to raise taxes until healthcare can fund itself. After all, that's public healthcare right: if you're relatively healthy you actually get screwed. Then taxes will be 100% and even that won't be enough. There are many ridiculously expensive treatments that have marginal benefits. The general purpose of public healthcare is as you say, but it still has to operate in the real world with limited budget. And actually increasing that budget to allow people to use one more ridiculously expensive treatment might even cause more deaths than not covering it. If you rearrange your budget, you have to take the money from somewhere. Will it be research, road maintenance, food quality controls ? Yes, in the beginning you can cut waste, but there will always be another treatment that is not covered. Second possibility is to increase taxes, but if you do it too muc, you might cripple your economy and increase poverty, which will have a sideeffect of actually causing more healthproblems and possibly actually lowering your tax income.
EDIT: typo
|
This basically makes me sick to my stomach. No solution in sight. This country is too bipartisan for any effective bills to be passed. Well there is one sure solution, put some money aside from every pay check cause you never know on those rainy days...
On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care?
Essentially if you pay taxes, then you already paid for this guy to get healthcare in jail... With universal healthcare, we can bypass many of the problems we face; people going broke for an illness, people doing crazy things like this man did in order to get some help. Who knows.
We can always not pay the thousands of politicians out there... Imagine how much money we would have for healthcare and other essential programs.
|
On June 22 2011 11:35 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 11:33 domovoi wrote:On June 22 2011 11:20 DerNebel wrote:On June 22 2011 10:35 Tremendous wrote:On June 22 2011 10:31 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:On June 22 2011 10:27 Tremendous wrote:I feel like there are some misunderstandings as to what a socialized healthcare system actualy means and what the governments role in it is. The governments DOES NOT run the hospitals, they also have no say direct say in the treatment of patients. The government provides FUNDING and oversight. They dont have gestapo-ish stormtroopers walking the halls telling the doctors who they can treat and who that cant treat. The idea that the cost of a universal healthcare system is much higher then a privatized system is also untrue. In fact, most EU countries with a universal healthcare system spend less pr. capita on healthcare than the US, because the systems end up simpler because you cut out a lot of the buracracy the costs go down signeficantly. fx. Take the Danish system http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_13261279Universal healthcare isnt a scary communist buggyman or an enormous cashsink. i also imagine the insurance that hospitals have to pay outside of the US is much cheaper due to the significantly (assumption, correct me if i'm wrong) lower amount of lawsuits (as well as the lack of lawsuits themselves, let alone the insurance) Indeed. When doctors dont have to worry about the cost of the treatments then they will provide the best possible help they can. Also, as they dont feel obligated to "cut corners" for the insurance companies there are a lot less problems with people getting poor treatment. Much better formulated than I could do it. Not to say our system is perfect though. We still do have a significant amount of private hospitals, and the public hospitals are right now experiencing budget cuts like crazy. Then again, so is the rest of the country, because of some bad political decisions leaving us unprepared for the financial crisis. Not to say the opposition would be any better at it, but the country is in a rough spot right now. Tremendous' points still stand though. When doctors don't have to worry about cost of treatment, they will provide the most expensive help they can. You may call this "best possible help," but in many cases, the odds of better health outcomes is low to non-existent. It's actually a good thing many European countries are willing to make the unpopular decision to curb health care costs. Otherwise, you really will end up with the fucked up American system, where it's simply not feasible to widen health care coverage because it's so damn expensive. What exactly is the incentive to go for the most expensive treatment? They don't get paid more for that... private doctors do. Many reasons. Because they are doctors and are obliged to try as much as possible to save someone. Because they want to prevent possible lawsuit. Because they are bribed by the provider of the treatment. And so on. Basically because they are human.
|
On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care?
True. And hey, while we're at it, why should you pay for someone else's kids to go to school? And why the FUCK are you paying for the fire service to save other people's lives? I mean, it's not like it's your life. And on top of that you're paying for those lazy unemployed bastards to not starve to death. I walked past a library earlier. I looked inside, that shit was FULL OF BIG ASS BOOKS. All out of your bank account. Did they even ask you?
Actually now I think about there's a whole shitload of things that YOU, yes you specifically you, are paying for, for other people. Those selfish cunts. You should kick off. Why can't they all just pay for it themselves? Why do we even have a government? This is bullshit.
|
On June 22 2011 04:56 wzzit wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 04:50 trainRiderJ wrote: Where I live the people without insurance just use the emergency room or a free clinic. Do they not have those in New York? In what part of the country are emergency rooms free of cost? ERs are legally obligated to stabilize anyone who comes in, even if they have no means to pay, but nothing beyond that.
|
On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care? Well in well designed public healthcare system you are not paying for other people's health care anymore than you do when you pay insurance to your insurance company. You are basically paying insurance, the difference is you cannot choose different provider and you are forced to insure yourself. And of course the amount you pay is calculated kind of strangely for an insurance
|
On June 22 2011 10:19 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 09:57 dogabutila wrote:On June 22 2011 09:43 Toadesstern wrote:On June 22 2011 09:33 Medrea wrote:Lol what a dolt. Prison healthcare is terrible and they hit up your estate for it when you die. Other people in thread saying there countries healthcare is free do not pay taxes  I know it is stylish in many countries to leach off the system and not pay taxes. In China it is grounds for execution. In the US they hit up your estate for it after you die. But US pays there taxes nonetheless. This dumbass is dreaming if he thinks he is gonna get a coast property on a fixed income. So why is government healthcare such a rip off? Same people who eat grease off the carpet pay the same rates as young people who do not even need healthcare. Just because a cost is labeled "taxes" doesnt mean its free. Do people in other countries really think there healthcare comes out of the goodness of the medical communities hearts? nah people in other countries think it's "fair" to let everyone pay taxes, instead of just one human beeing paying a shitload of money because he got unlucky in some kind of accident he could not have affected and therefore having debts for the rest of his (ruined) life. See I hear this argument a lot but it's not really realistic either. How many people get randomly unlucky? vs how many people choose to believe that they are unlucky? Most medical issues are not random, and are generally a combination of lifestyle and genetic factors. All of these are predictable. People should educate themselves and assess their own risk. That's exactly my point. There's an EXTREMLY low amount of people who get unlucky, like REALY EXTREMLY low. But those are fucked for the rest of their lifes for no other reason than beeing unlucky. I'm not talking about a cough or something like that. We got to pay 10€ everytime we go to a doctor in germany. Noone cares about that. But one might care about some serious problems, that are that rare and more importantly costly, that a single person might not be able to pay for it. I don't know what the numbers for stuff like cancer or genetic illnesses are (really don't know what it's called in english sry, guess it's clear what I'm talking about?). Let's say one out a thousand gets cancer or something like that, just for the purpose of numbers. Do you think it's fair that the guy has to pay for the treatment himself (aprox: shittons of money) and 999 people who got lucky, because they don't have cancer don't have to pay? not even a single cent? If you think that's fair I'm glad I'm not living in the us. Of course there's things like alcoholics who got an increased chance to need a new liver someday and therefore you could probably say it's their own fault but still, as long as we're able to help I think we should do, no matter what.
Yes. I think that it is entirely fair that people should take care of their own personal problems. I would not think it is fair if my neighbor gets a flat tire because he was driving over glass and I have to buy him a new tire.
Do you think it is fair to force other people to pay for the problems of others? Heres a thought, give away your money to all your co-workers. I'm sure they have problems that you do not have. It's not fair that you have money to spend while they have important issues and bills to take care of.
On June 22 2011 10:50 TheFrankOne wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 10:35 Tremendous wrote:On June 22 2011 10:31 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:On June 22 2011 10:27 Tremendous wrote:I feel like there are some misunderstandings as to what a socialized healthcare system actualy means and what the governments role in it is. The governments DOES NOT run the hospitals, they also have no say direct say in the treatment of patients. The government provides FUNDING and oversight. They dont have gestapo-ish stormtroopers walking the halls telling the doctors who they can treat and who that cant treat. The idea that the cost of a universal healthcare system is much higher then a privatized system is also untrue. In fact, most EU countries with a universal healthcare system spend less pr. capita on healthcare than the US, because the systems end up simpler because you cut out a lot of the buracracy the costs go down signeficantly. fx. Take the Danish system http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_13261279Universal healthcare isnt a scary communist buggyman or an enormous cashsink. i also imagine the insurance that hospitals have to pay outside of the US is much cheaper due to the significantly (assumption, correct me if i'm wrong) lower amount of lawsuits (as well as the lack of lawsuits themselves, let alone the insurance) Indeed. When doctors dont have to worry about the cost of the treatments then they will provide the best possible help they can. Also, as they dont feel obligated to "cut corners" for the insurance companies there are a lot less problems with people getting poor treatment. I think he was talking about torts and tort reform, which I think should be put into some perspective. Tort reform would create savings of about .2% in healthcare costs. Ttorts themselves represent about 2% of healthcare spending. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10641/10-09-Tort_Reform.pdf (source) The per capita cost difference of US compared to most OECD nations is about 1/3 give or take 10% per country. So malpractice lawsuits just doesn't come near to covering that gap . Edit: @lastchance, not all states allow you to sue the at-fault driver or his insurance in a car accident.
Tort reform would save more then that. While the actual costs of lawsuits and such only equate directly to 2% of healthcare costs the insurance costs for doctors also get jacked up higher because of them. They pass these costs down you know. All around cheaper end use is better in every way.
On June 22 2011 13:05 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care? Well in well designed public healthcare system you are not paying for other people's health care anymore than you do when you pay insurance to your insurance company. You are basically paying insurance, the difference is you cannot choose different provider and you are forced to insure yourself. And of course the amount you pay is calculated kind of strangely for an insurance 
And if you decide that you do not want to pay insurance the men with guns kick in your door and take it from you. Awesome huh? And you are paying for others health care as long as you are not sick.
|
On June 22 2011 13:05 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care? Well in well designed public healthcare system you are not paying for other people's health care anymore than you do when you pay insurance to your insurance company. You are basically paying insurance, the difference is you cannot choose different provider and you are forced to insure yourself. And of course the amount you pay is calculated kind of strangely for an insurance  When you're paying health insurance you're not paying for anybody else's health, except incidentally as part of a voluntary, beneficial system of shared risk. When you pay for public healthcare though, you're essentially paying for other people's insurance. Unless of course other people are paying for your insurance, but you get the point.
|
On June 22 2011 12:15 orn wrote: Instead of spending billions of dollars finding easier and more efficient ways to kill people, why not spend a few billion to save the lives of your own citizens America?
Are we still talking about the country with streets of gold, the American Dream, and the place that gives immigrants and minorities more rights than natural citizens and the general populous? Because if we are, your logic is skewed. How could we send soldiers off to lifetime trauma in war if we are actually giving them positive options in our country? I don't remember the %, but in a private study a relatively high percentage of servicemen and women said they signed up only for the chance at an education and or the chance to have a decent paying job with basic benefits. I know it's a bit unrelated, but this is indeed the country that used to get ideas for the CIA from cokehead Hollywood producers productions, please do not give our government's organizational ability too much credit - specifically after it has grown 10 fold since Bush was elected.
Edit: ty guy below me.
|
Health insurance was originally a bunch of people, pooling together their money into a common account in which every member that contributes to the pool of money is entitled to withdraw money from that pool to pay for their health costs as long as they continue to contribute a small amount every so often. The idea was that since health costs are extremely high, by pooling money, people can help one another since you're not always going to be ill. At the same time, this also meant that when you needed the money, you would be assured to have it. Everybody wins.
Then companies came along and realized that they could make money out of this. They did. They make a ridiculous amount of money by bastardizing the original system to get as much money out of people as they can.
When you buy health insurance, even privatized health insurance, you ARE paying for other people's health. You're contributing to the pool of money being held by Blue Shield, Kaiser, Aetna, etc... that is and will be withdrawn from to pay for someone else' health costs who subscribes to that company. The difference is that not only are you contributing to that pool of money with your premiums, you're paying the workers of that company as well.
Some people say the difference is that it's voluntary when it's privatized health care insurance. I'd argue that it's not. It's a necessity. You can't simply decide to not get sick or not get in an accident. You can minimize the risk factors, but sometimes life just takes a giant dump on you. Right now, it's simply a matter that those who can afford get to have the benefit of being healthy while those who can't afford get fucked when life decides to go south.
And for those who dislike paying for other people's stuff, keep in mind that you already do that via taxes. You pay for other people's clean water, their security (police and firefighters), their information (libraries and invention of the internet was a government project fyi), and transportation (public transit and roads) amongst others. Hell, you pay for their retirement funds ffs.
^Poster above me. Get rid of the spoilers and the stuff in it if you don't wanna get banned.
|
I'm going to go slightly off topic but I'll just share a story to be discussed.
My baby cousin (who turns 3 in about 2 months) was diagnosed with a brain tumour about 4 months ago. This came about from my aunt taking her to see a doctor because her head suddenly started swelling and then seeing a specialist and then straight to the ER. After evaluating her case for a few hours, doctors immediately started operating on her. The surgery took just over 8 hours and stopped when the doctor decided that they had done all they could in that session and my cousin would have to recover before she could be operated on further. Speaking with the doctor he said we were extremely lucky since by his guess, if we had waited another 24 hours she would have been had a 80-90% chance of being dead. As of now, she's still on chemotherapy and will continue to be on chemo for another (approximately) six months to kill off the remainder of the tumour. From the statements above in the thread, I'd imagine that if my cousin was in the USA, It'd probably have rung up at over $100k+ for the surgery+doctor+specialist, it probably wouldn't have been performed in time to save her had we lived in the USA and the subsequent surgeries that she's undergone + chemotherapy would've racked up a couple of million in healthcare bills easily.
The doctor said that a case of a malignant brain tumour happens to about 5 kids a year, tops. By some of the opinions in this article, what I'm getting is that she either should've died by no fault of her own, or put my aunt/uncle in an absurd financial situation from selling their house and borrowing money from everyone else in the family and relying on financial support from our extended family in order to have enough money to pay for the surgery or lose their daughter due to bad luck?
I know a lot of people are opposed to the idea of paying for other people's healthcare but from a statistic I saw a while back.
"Nationally, more than two-thirds of U.S. households reported giving to charity in 2004, with average contributions of $2,047 that year, according to a study released in January by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. "
Source
I really do not see the issue in adding a $100-$150 charge a year that covers all non-trivial problems for everyone across the USA. Stuff such as broken bones or simple surgeries that require at most an overnight stay wouldn't be covered but it would help with insurance companies as well since they no longer have to deal with the odd extreme out there case which wrecks their bottom line if the charge goes through.
|
On June 22 2011 14:58 dogabutila wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 10:19 Toadesstern wrote:On June 22 2011 09:57 dogabutila wrote:On June 22 2011 09:43 Toadesstern wrote:On June 22 2011 09:33 Medrea wrote:Lol what a dolt. Prison healthcare is terrible and they hit up your estate for it when you die. Other people in thread saying there countries healthcare is free do not pay taxes  I know it is stylish in many countries to leach off the system and not pay taxes. In China it is grounds for execution. In the US they hit up your estate for it after you die. But US pays there taxes nonetheless. This dumbass is dreaming if he thinks he is gonna get a coast property on a fixed income. So why is government healthcare such a rip off? Same people who eat grease off the carpet pay the same rates as young people who do not even need healthcare. Just because a cost is labeled "taxes" doesnt mean its free. Do people in other countries really think there healthcare comes out of the goodness of the medical communities hearts? nah people in other countries think it's "fair" to let everyone pay taxes, instead of just one human beeing paying a shitload of money because he got unlucky in some kind of accident he could not have affected and therefore having debts for the rest of his (ruined) life. See I hear this argument a lot but it's not really realistic either. How many people get randomly unlucky? vs how many people choose to believe that they are unlucky? Most medical issues are not random, and are generally a combination of lifestyle and genetic factors. All of these are predictable. People should educate themselves and assess their own risk. That's exactly my point. There's an EXTREMLY low amount of people who get unlucky, like REALY EXTREMLY low. But those are fucked for the rest of their lifes for no other reason than beeing unlucky. I'm not talking about a cough or something like that. We got to pay 10€ everytime we go to a doctor in germany. Noone cares about that. But one might care about some serious problems, that are that rare and more importantly costly, that a single person might not be able to pay for it. I don't know what the numbers for stuff like cancer or genetic illnesses are (really don't know what it's called in english sry, guess it's clear what I'm talking about?). Let's say one out a thousand gets cancer or something like that, just for the purpose of numbers. Do you think it's fair that the guy has to pay for the treatment himself (aprox: shittons of money) and 999 people who got lucky, because they don't have cancer don't have to pay? not even a single cent? If you think that's fair I'm glad I'm not living in the us. Of course there's things like alcoholics who got an increased chance to need a new liver someday and therefore you could probably say it's their own fault but still, as long as we're able to help I think we should do, no matter what. Yes. I think that it is entirely fair that people should take care of their own personal problems. I would not think it is fair if my neighbor gets a flat tire because he was driving over glass and I have to buy him a new tire. Do you think it is fair to force other people to pay for the problems of others? Heres a thought, give away your money to all your co-workers. I'm sure they have problems that you do not have. It's not fair that you have money to spend while they have important issues and bills to take care of. Are you just comparing not having a working car with dying ? You not having a working car does not pose really any moral problem for the society. Society letting you die unnecessarily because you have no money on the other hand is a moral dilemma for normal humans. And yes I think sometimes it is fair to force other people to pay for the problems of others. Depends on the details, as always.
On June 22 2011 14:58 dogabutila wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 13:05 mcc wrote:On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care? Well in well designed public healthcare system you are not paying for other people's health care anymore than you do when you pay insurance to your insurance company. You are basically paying insurance, the difference is you cannot choose different provider and you are forced to insure yourself. And of course the amount you pay is calculated kind of strangely for an insurance  And if you decide that you do not want to pay insurance the men with guns kick in your door and take it from you. Awesome huh? And you are paying for others health care as long as you are not sick. I have nothing against law enforcement. So yes, awesome. Did you actually read what I wrote ? Yes you are paying for the healthcare of others as far as having insurance is paying healthcare for others. The mandatory nature of that insurance does not change that fact. In private insurance case if you are healthy and paying insurance, you are also paying healthcare for others. As for the rest, I have no problem with mandatory health insurance, I find it a good thing, you do not. There are many advantages, and the only disadvantage is loss of so-called "freedom" not to pay. I do not consider it important freedom to begin with so I do not care.
EDIT:typo
|
On June 22 2011 05:47 DeepElemBlues wrote:im actually pretty geeked that my guess was so close, guesstimate i guess would be better =D anyway why the USA being less densely populated is a problem is that we need as many hospitals as we can get in order to cover as many people as possible. all these hospitals naturally want the best equipment and the best doctors and nurses and assistants and employees in general they can get their hands on but not all of these hospitals live in communities with the wealth to support it but most of the time the hospitals get the equipment at least anyway, or the best they can get is still pretty expensive, and this cost is passed on to insurance companies, especially as medical technology keeps improving so fast so, it isn't the whole problem or even 15% of the problem, but you add everything up including people being uninsured and you have a big problem, one not necessarily fixed by insuring the uninsured through government and putting new regulations on insurance companies that are going to inevitably raise their costs Show nested quote +Why does everyone ignore that the US pays half the entire worlds military budget COMBINED? China, Russia, and the rest of the entire fucking world - combined - is still less than what the US spends on military! You cannot pay for this shit and expect to be able to afford everything that other countries with literally a single digit percentage of what US spends on military. You gotta cut corners to pay for that shit and healthcare is one of those corners. oh please the US spends about 700 billion a year on defense currently as said about 5% of GDP guess how much health care is? 16% last i checked and rising. thats a lot more than 700 billion. no one ignores it, people who think about it dismiss it because its unrealistic and wouldnt help anyway
Look up north bro.
Last I checked we had a bigger landmass and only about 10% of the population... You could do it.
|
iCanada, you guys are also not spread nearly as thin. Your cities are CITIES. We have like 3 cities in the entire US - NY, LA, Miami. Other than that, we actually cover our entire landmass, whereas it is way too cold for you to do so. That's really a horrible comparison considering that Canada doesn't use more than half of its land.
However, I don't dispute the "you can do it" part.
|
On June 22 2011 12:24 cyanide66 wrote: why should i have to pay for someone else's health care?
because they are the people you live with on this earth. If you are ever on a soccer team and sprain your ankle, would you want to have to quit the game all together simply because there are those that could replace you?
The cost of public health care is also split between the masses. As we all know there are many more poor then rich, but the system (well the one in canada) tries to tax the richer to make the disparity between the classes minute. it's a socialist system, so that's all up to the masses to decide on what is best considering the situation the land is under.
I think that since we really cannot say one life is more important than another, because there are too many exceptions, we must take a broad standpoint of socialists for healthcare and provide it as equally as possible.
|
|
|
|