Does size matter?

Does size matter?

Size of a society, or a matter of scale.

Now that I have your attention with the suggestive thread title, let's get serious. For the sake of this conversation, let's not quibble over whether Universal Health Care (UHC) is a good idea in general, or not. There are other societies that seem to do UHC fairly well. But... they also tend to be much smaller in terms of scale (population).

Even if UHC is technically workable, would the sheer scale of our larger society make it unworkable?

I don't think it matters at all, and have seen nothing to indicate otherwise.

radcen said:

Does size matter?

Size of a society, or a matter of scale.

Now that I have your attention with the suggestive thread title, let's get serious. For the sake of this conversation, let's not quibble over whether Universal Health Care (UHC) is a good idea in general, or not. There are other societies that seem to do UHC fairly well. But... they also tend to be much smaller in terms of scale (population).

Even if UHC is technically workable, would the sheer scale of our larger society make it unworkable?

Click to expand...

The scale hurts. So does the wider disparity among our citizenry.

The size certainly complicates things but I don't see why it would make it unworkable.

cpwill said:

The scale hurts. So does the wider disparity among our citizenry.

Click to expand...

I thought about adding that, too. It might be a bigger factor, really.

radcen said:

Does size matter?

Size of a society, or a matter of scale.

Now that I have your attention with the suggestive thread title, let's get serious. For the sake of this conversation, let's not quibble over whether Universal Health Care (UHC) is a good idea in general, or not. There are other societies that seem to do UHC fairly well. But... they also tend to be much smaller in terms of scale (population).

Even if UHC is technically workable, would the sheer scale of our larger society make it unworkable?

Click to expand...

Its not unworkable. Even with the size.

The disparity of our culture versus others would mean that little would change for the better with a single payer system.

radcen said:

I thought about adding that, too. It might be a bigger factor, really.

Click to expand...

Might be?

I think that pretty much nails it.

If half of our citizens can't "afford" to be taxed for all of the services our government already provides, how can we possibly expect to tie this huge albatross around the necks of the other half who are already becoming more and more fed up footing the every-increasing bill for the freeloaders?

Especially when we're talking about an industry where state-of-the-art premium care is going to be the expectation across the board, and folks who aren't receiving just that are going to be screaming that their "rights" have been violated and that "racism" is probably the cause.

Since UHC is not "free" healthcare as it has been misnomered on so many occasions, the size of the society should mean, under a good system, that each citizen pays in and takes out evenly (more or less).
However, what is "done reasonably well"?
In almost every country I've seen UHC utilized, its citizens also pay a MUCH higher taxation, something I would not to be the tradeoff.
If you can find a way to implement UHC without raising taxes then I'd sign up.

radcen said:

Does size matter?

Size of a society, or a matter of scale.

Now that I have your attention with the suggestive thread title, let's get serious. For the sake of this conversation, let's not quibble over whether Universal Health Care (UHC) is a good idea in general, or not. There are other societies that seem to do UHC fairly well. But... they also tend to be much smaller in terms of scale (population).

Even if UHC is technically workable, would the sheer scale of our larger society make it unworkable?

Click to expand...

Regardless of the scale of or society it would tend to be administered at the local (or at least regional) level anyway.

If the US wanted go all in on UHC, we have to cut way back on National Defense.
That's a big reason why the other countries can pull it off.

I don't see real progress in health care until buyer and seller are able to interact without the enormous gulf that's currently between them by all the insurance companies/systems, that screw it all up.

Regarding size, it's like all other systems. You don't try to centrally command anything that large and complex and important, why would you be TRYING to do it with health care? You distort the market. When you go to get treatment and its 20 years behind what it could be, and you risk your life or a chronic condition because of that...market distortion suddenly becomes a real thing, instead of just "capitalist rhetoric".

It won't just help cost either, research, treatment success, etc., if we get money into healthcare that follows performance and success, rather than "you have a degree you open a practice you get paid by insurance companies who mandate citizens have insurance)." Read some published papers on your next treatment option. It's glacially slow. 10 years to figure out which treatment works best when the tests can be run in weeks, it's outrageous. I feel like I have to take over my own diagnosis and treatment, this big box health care is for the birds.

Health care is BIG business, it should be run like big business. I'd rather a rockstar IVY league doctor doing my surgery than a rockstar IVy league high-finance broker managing my money, personally.

radcen said:

Does size matter?

Size of a society, or a matter of scale.

Now that I have your attention with the suggestive thread title, let's get serious. For the sake of this conversation, let's not quibble over whether Universal Health Care (UHC) is a good idea in general, or not. There are other societies that seem to do UHC fairly well. But... they also tend to be much smaller in terms of scale (population).

Even if UHC is technically workable, would the sheer scale of our larger society make it unworkable?

Click to expand...

It certainly matters, but that's not the only factor. The US is also unique in the perennial amount of poor immigrants it takes in year after year, decade after decade. that puts a strain on the viability of a universal type of healthcare as those people would be subsidized.