The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Healthcare - For Sinij

This is not a choice most people willing to go with, and fundamental reason why market-driven (not that our existing system is anywhere close to being market-driven) health care system could not exist even in principle.

Consumer choice - a process where a product is not consumed at a high price point due to its perceived value not matching cost and resulting in downward pressure on price - simply does not exist for majority of people because "no thanks, dying is more cost effective for me" is not a choice many people would make.

"""It is not the government's job" conservative line of thinking is used to justify undermining main function of our government - that is combine society's resources and then distribute them in most effective way. How can an individual engage in "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" if they are sick, starving and have no way out of their predicaments?""

This really points out where we diverge.

It is absolutely not a governments job to take my resources and distribute them to others in a manner it finds politically expedient.

Any top down society like you describe is nothing but tyranny, now matter how enlightened or just the motives of the people seeking to implement it.

No matter how you spin it, in the end all that type of system equates to is the people at the top using brute force to take from some and give to others based on their own judgements of value, which, history tells us, usually has nothing to do with any type of objective value.

It just cant work. Do you not understand or acknowledge at all, the types of and magnitude of problems that occur when peoples choices are taken from them and put in the hands of the ruling elite? Which is what, btw, govt officials become in the types of society you describe. Even the much touted by Socialists Nordic countries have been rotting from within, and they have massive resource exports per capita to prop up their fallacy.

I really wish you would read Human Action, and Socialism sometime. It would open your eyes, or at least help you evolve better arguments.

Sinj, your right, I do not wish that on any one. But what I do wish on them is personal responsbility. I used an example from my life to show that, no matter how bad it is, there is a way foward that does not invole the goverment.

For your statement that what I posted is a consevative line of thinking. I am far from a conseravtive. How ever I do view it as a personal reponsbility. I also do not view it as the goverments job to redistubute resources. I view there job as given us a vacum tobe anything we wish tobe. Life: the right to be alive, Liberty: the right to succed or fail, Pursuit of Happiness: to engage your self in the caarer you desire regradless of the career your mother or father had.

Now as my views pertain to AHCA(obamacare). I agree with regulating insurnace companies not to drop due to preexsiting conditions, nor a life time cap, nor am I against the offspring staying on thier parents insurance till 26.
What I am against is the force to buy insurnce for just being alive.
What I wish was included was the ability to buy insurance over state lines, a single payer option, and a tax break for those that have cadallic policys.

Not sure I have said it before, so let me say it now, I do respect your postion. I enjoy the ability to have an open debate where both sides respect each other and where the other person comes from.

Millions of people a year getting cured and living longer.
People not piled up in the streets dieing or dead.
This is for sure the most barbaric system to infest the known world.

Life expectancy

Australia 81.6 yr
Canada 81.2 yr
Sweden 80.9 yr
Netherlands 79.4 yr
...
US 78.1 yr

Healthcare Costs:

Sweden (social, 9% GDP)
Canada ( social, 9% GDP )
Netherlands (state mandated purchase of private health insurance, 8% GDP)
Australia ( social, 6% GDP)
USA (private, 15%+ GDP)

Swedish healthcare costs or $3319 per person
Canadian healthcare costs or $3899 per person
US healthcare costs or $7291 per person

The first problem with your data Sinij, as we've repeatedly shown, is that the U.S. carries the burden for medical discovery and advancement for virtually the entire world.
Cost differential explained.

The second problem is a function of our wealth as a nation. We are the 1% of the world (to put it in classist terms you can identify with), and we're fat and lazy as a consequence. We abuse our bodies to no end and we consume some really horrible stuff in the name of convenience. These are things that most other countries on the planet cannot afford, and that, for the time being, we are free to do. In what fantasy do you believe that you'll be allowed to continue to make poor health choices once the government is responsible for your healthcare?
Life expectancy explained.

Here's what I really cannot understand. If there are countries on this planet who govern like you want, to whom you point as an example and who you place on a socialist pedestal, all while decrying our draconian immigration policies; why not immigrate to one of those countries? Why insist on changing the only country on the planet like ours to be like all the others you hold in such high esteem?

There isn't any problems with my data, but feel free to come up with alternative numbers that contradict my assertions.



You repeatedly speculated. Shown would imply that you had a shred of evidence or anything other than a lot of vigorous hand waving.



All cost figures are also show as % of GDP, they are still astronomically high.




Countries I compared US to are First-World, with similar quality of life, personal income and so on. You'd have a case if I compared to Zimbabwe and Somalia, but I didn't.



If our ancestors didn't like to live under British colonial yoke they should have just left, right?

http://www.oecd.org/country/0,3731,en_33873108_33873886_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

See the article on high US health costs.

The US gets a lot of crap done, medical wise per capita.

Also, we pay more for drugs. US and Japan are the best for things like Cancer. This ties in with the discovery and advancement. So to does the high ratio of advanced equipment per capita. I believe Japan is #1, saw it on a documentary about their financial crises related to health costs and an aging population. Dietary and cultural health trends also play a part.

Oh, we also pay more for our publicly administrated health apparatus. This will include bodies like the CDC and FDA.

One aspect of the higher costs, which is not specifically addressed here - but is obvious to anyone with a grounding in economics is the wide physical distribution of the population over a large area, whereas smaller countries with smaller populations will not have nearly the same overhead because the serviced population will typically be more concentrated.

Another aspect, is taking into account the psuedo-socialism that we already have in place. This comes in the form of regulations, insurance costs due to an inefficient litigation system, and other assorted misc inefficiencies but thats all found in different papers I am feeling too lazy to dig back up.

Something else that isnt mentioned in the article, but is easy obtainable with just a little bit of self motivation is comparison of waiting lists. The USA doesnt have them for most types of treatment, as opposed to most other countries. As a consequence, some popular treatments cost more if you do not want to wait. Since most people have insurance, they opt not to wait.

Derid, now take your arguments and try to apply them to any countries I have compared US to. Litigation, even more socialistic systems, regulation, decentralized population... all of it Australia, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands have plenty. I am not convinced that you could demonstrate significant difference between US and countries I have listed, but by all means try again.

Life expectancy (and the rest of metrics, like child mortality or chronic diseases are equally bad) demonstrates that whatever US health care system is doing, so that would include having higher ratio of advanced equipment per capita, is clearly nor working. So what that we have more expensive medical machines - they are clearly not helping, just look at the outcomes.

This one?

WHY IS HEALTH SPENDING IN THE UNITED STATES SO HIGH? (PDF)

It pretty much agrees with what I said. Higher costs, worse or equal outcomes.

Especially look at Table 4 - administration is 274%, physicians and specialist expenses - 238%... Over-over-over paying by orders of magnitude and have nothing to show for it.