How do people live without medical insurance?

[Jmustang1968]

Do you really believe more will suffer with free healthcare then with our current healthcare? Because it sounds like you are saying "but people with more money might have to suffer now". Money shouldn't decide who deserves priorty. But the truth is we already see Canada's mistakes and can prevent them.

It's a bit like medication to bi-polar medication: you have ups and downs, or everybody gets the same mediocrity. We've experimented with government sponsored healthcare: Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran's Affairs. None have proven to be entirely effective and suffer from extensive wait lists and the inability to procure necessary equipment, so even in small scale we're already seeing problems. As glorious as the concept of free healthcare is, it is also rife with opportunity for human error and mismanagement.

And even if we manage to struggle through and end up with an excellent system similar to the social systems in Scandinavia, they're starting to suffer under the increase of immigration in response, which is leading to other ongoing social issues in their society, particularly prejudice. As a nation that has thrived on immigration(whether or not we like to admit it, considering our past behavior to immigrant waves), do we want a system that may inevitably lead to the resurgence of such attitudes?

"Don't want more immigrants because people might become more prejudice" already sounds prejudice. If there is an influx of immigrants then obviously they are doing something right and maybe the problem isn't that they offer good healthcare but that other countries don't. Don't you want to live in a desirable country? Or do you want to live in an undesirable country so we have less immigrants?

But the fact of the matter is what we have is terrible.

But it isn't terrible. Can it be better? Sure. But millions upon millions get quality healthcare paid for and free.

[jp1]

I think whether it should or not is immaterial, so bringing it up just leaves you in la la fantasy land along with the true communists and those who believe in true democracy and every other theoretical system based around ignoring the fact that humans are selfish.

I don't quite understand you. You are a realist? Ok, I get that...but don't you have ideals as well? I mean it may not mean you can or will change things (That is naive of anyone to believe). But, the whole "If you aren't part of the solution..." doesn't ring true with you at all?

I'm not picking at you, this is a genuine question out of curiosity and not judgement.

Everything that we have now was at one time a fantasy la la land until people as a whole made it a reality. For whatever it is, that is true. You can choose to be part of a collective consciousness that shares whatever it is you believe to be right, or you can throw your hands up and say "It is what it is." That's just my opinion, but I feel like if you accept everything at face value then you are ignoring the problems that exist and by doing so you are validating them as a choice.

[pepharytheworm]

Money exists, therefore it will determine priority. It might be explicit, such as a sign that says "paying customers move to the front of the line", or it might just be bribes.

I said "shouldn't". Do you think it should? Otherwise what is your point?

I think whether it should or not is immaterial, so bringing it up just leaves you in la la fantasy land along with the true communists and those who believe in true democracy and every other theoretical system based around ignoring the fact that humans are selfish.

Money is not a law of nature, there are no absolutes. If money was air I could see your point but it's not.

[prfsnl_gmr]

But it isn't terrible.

Sadly, it is terrible. We spend far more per capita on health care in the United States than any other western, industrialized nation to achieve the worst results. Accordingly, the U.S. health care system is like a gaming system with a $999.00 MSRP and the processing power of a PS2. Sure, it can probably play some pretty fun games, but short of having nothing at all, it is most definitely the worst of all available options.

[Jmustang1968]

But it isn't terrible.

Sadly, it is terrible. We spend far more per capita on health care in the United States than any other western, industrialized nation to achieve the worst results. Accordingly, the U.S. health care system is like a gaming system with a $999.00 MSRP and the processing power of a PS2. Sure, it can probably play some pretty fun games, but short of having nothing at all, it is most definitely the worst of all available options.

Yeah, you grabbed the same thing I was talking about earlier.

You do see how Quality is ranked 5th right?
I also already addressed the infant mortality and the 'access' which is circular logic.

It is also a somewhat subjective study by a think tank that is trying to promote universal healthcare. A bit self serving?

[MrPopo]

I think whether it should or not is immaterial, so bringing it up just leaves you in la la fantasy land along with the true communists and those who believe in true democracy and every other theoretical system based around ignoring the fact that humans are selfish.

I don't quite understand you. You are a realist? Ok, I get that...but don't you have ideals as well? I mean it may not mean you can or will change things (That is naive of anyone to believe). But, the whole "If you aren't part of the solution..." doesn't ring true with you at all?

I'm not picking at you, this is a genuine question out of curiosity and not judgement.

Everything that we have now was at one time a fantasy la la land until people as a whole made it a reality. For whatever it is, that is true. You can choose to be part of a collective consciousness that shares whatever it is you believe to be right, or you can throw your hands up and say "It is what it is." That's just my opinion, but I feel like if you accept everything at face value then you are ignoring the problems that exist and by doing so you are validating them as a choice.

Any social solution that does not start off with "Assuming that all humans are selfish bastards" is no solution at all, it's just idealism. I'm not saying that healthcare is fine as it is, or we should accept it as it is. I'm saying we need realistic solutions. The initial proposals will have flaws, but they should at least start from a realistic place and then we can iterate on it to get closer to a true solution (though the existence of people in the equation means we'll at best approach a rue solution asymptotically).

Money is not a law of nature, there are no absolutes. If money was air I could see your point but it's not.

You don't seem to understand the deeper underlying point. There will always be some "thing" that is scarce, and that can be used to barter and thus circumvent any system of "fairness" you try to dream up. Money is just a means to abstract away the relative scarcity and desirability of a particular thing to make it easier for people to transact. The underlying notion still holds true.

[prfsnl_gmr]

But it isn't terrible.

Sadly, it is terrible.

You do see how Quality is ranked 5th right

Yes. Even it were tied for first, however, it is still far too expensive. (If two gaming systems were identical in all respects except price, the choice between them would be easy. You would buy the less expensive one.)

It is also a somewhat subjective study by a think tank that is trying to promote universal healthcare. A bit self serving?

That may or may not be true. To my knowledge, however, there are no studies that reach a different result. (The best that can be said is that, if you can afford it, the most expensive health care in the United States is better than the most expensive health care in other countries.)

[marurun]

Healthcare quality and outcomes in the US vary more widely than they do in nations with state-run, single-payer systems. We do have lots of high-quality providers, but those with lower income tend not to have equal access to them. In other countries those same disparities exist, but they are much more pronounced in the US. Further, in the US we have a real lack of general practitioners, because current healthcare purchasing patterns have meant there's lots more money in specialists. This also hurts health outcomes in many ways.

One thing that raises costs for health care is having to deal with a dozen different insurance providers. Those with insurance actually pay far less, because insurance companies negotiate lower rates for procedures, sometimes even below cost. This leaves the uninsured saddled with higher rates because the not only don't have someone to negotiate on their behalf, but because they may be pickup up some of the overhead the insurance companies manage to shave off. In the US, health care costs are the leading cost of personal bankruptcy. Not so in single-payer nations.

As far as my reading on the matter is concerned, far fewer people have had negative health impacts as a result of the Affordable Care Act than those who have had positive health impacts. And even though there may be short-term financial impacts such as higher payments, the potential to reduce health care related bankruptcy and utter destitution is worth it, IMO.

I have to say, when this law was being passed, I was not a fan. I didn't think it went far enough. Now that it is passed, I'm seeing positives. And a lot of the anecdotal negative individual tales in the news, when examined after the fact in follow-up interviews and fact checks, turn out to either not have been negatives, or to be far milder negatives than presented.

[Jmustang1968]

That isnt a logical fallacy. Whenever you evaluate stats, studies, or rankings, one has to consider the context, source, and manner of the study. You can spin stats or highlight certain ones over others to get desired results. When a group pushing for universal healthcare uses whether or not a country has universal healthcare as a major component to rate how good it is, you can see what I am getting at. Rankings are subjective and it would be self serving to rate what they are trying to change as bad in order to further their agenda.

Either way, I think improvement to the system or lack there of could be made. But I dont buy that our healthcare system is terrible.

[jp1]

Any social solution that does not start off with "Assuming that all humans are selfish bastards" is no solution at all, it's just idealism. I'm not saying that healthcare is fine as it is, or we should accept it as it is. I'm saying we need realistic solutions. The initial proposals will have flaws, but they should at least start from a realistic place and then we can iterate on it to get closer to a true solution (though the existence of people in the equation means we'll at best approach a rue solution asymptotically).

Fair warning: If you are sick of my long winded responses, skip this. It is only vaguely relevant to the thread topic, moreover it is a direct response to what MrPopo wrote.

I will grant you that many (not all) humans are selfish. I also agree that a solution has to be rooted in reality in order to be feasible. However, I feel like idealism needs to be part of the equation if we want to strive to become a better society. A cynical approach probably makes a lot more sense when viewed through the eyes of what the world is. I like to think about what I would like the world to be, and from that standpoint I make my own personal judgments on what is right or wrong. Now, those personal judgments are not necessarily any more valid than those of anyone else, but to me the internal relationship between "what is" and "what should be" helps me feel like an individual rather than just a cog in the machine. I also feel without this idealism that we can't progress to be a more enlightened society.

A lot of greed has both allowed us to make great advancements as a people as well as being responsible for a great many misgivings. The exact same thing can be said for idealism. It isn't that I can't see your points or even that they don't make sense...it is simply that I want to believe in a future in which people become more enlightened and compassionate. In the case of "Every human is a selfish bastard.", what is the point in trying to fix anything? You might as well be throwing rocks at the ocean to try and change the tide. I don't want to live in that world. Surely you can see that a great many humanitarian efforts from genuinely caring people are carried out around the world daily?

Rather than base solutions on a selfish, callous, or indifferent majority, I think that the thoughts and opinions of people with a different perspective might need to start being considered. How many times do you read something that makes total sense from a logical standpoint and then find yourself thinking "That will never happen, X is going to squash that before it even makes it off the ground."? All because X might lose something from their bottom line. I'm not disagreeing that this is the way things are. I am emphatically making the argument that it is time for things to stop being "what they are" and start being "what they should". There is almost no chance of that happening, but if nobody is willing to take a step in that direction, were does that leave us in the future?