Universal Healthcare and the Economy

savoir-faire · 12-22-07, 12:41 AM

Opinion: Locked in a job by health insurance

Universal healthcare is not free healthcare for all. It is required health insurance with an option to choose your own plan or buy into a plan that our government employees have-this will stimulate business and lower healthcare costs.

You will have more choice. You won’t be restricted to an insurance company’s “approved list” of doctors and providers.

If you go to an emergency room, you won’t find it crowded with uninsured people who really just need a primary care doctor.

PeteEU · 12-22-07, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by savoir-faire

Opinion: Locked in a job by health insurance

Universal healthcare is not free healthcare for all. It is required health insurance with an option to choose your own plan or buy into a plan that our government employees have-this will stimulate business and lower healthcare costs.

You will have more choice. You won’t be restricted to an insurance company’s “approved list” of doctors and providers.

If you go to an emergency room, you won’t find it crowded with uninsured people who really just need a primary care doctor.

Universal healthcare is a principle that no one in a country goes without health insurance. How you do that, is up to the country. Most countries do it via taxation as its by far the easiest and more efficient way of doing it, but a place like Switzerland has universal healthcare but via private insurance only. Granted Switzerland is thinking of dropping this in favor of a tax based system, due to huge increases in private health insurance, but due to big swiss pharma, many doubt that it will ever get to the vote.

As for choice. It depends again how your system is put together. 30 years ago many UH systems were very "locked" as in you could only goto 1 doctor that the system gave you and so on, today that is not so. You can choose your doctor within reason (like you cant choose a doctor that lives in a different city usualy

), and even your hospital in some systems.

As for going to emergency rooms and finding it crowded with uninsured who should be going to thier primary care doctor. Yes and no. Sure there are no uninsured, and most people do goto thier primary care doctor, but there will always be the idiots who goto the emergency room for trivial things like cuts and bruises and even ingrown toe nails. Its free after all. To combat this, some countries have put in place a symbolic fee you have to pay if the doctors see the injury as trivial. There are also other ways to motivate people not to clog the emergency room with trivial matters, such as on call doctors who come to your home or consult you over the phone. That helps alot too, especially with the biggest group of trivial injury emergency users... mothers and fathers with sick children.

Point is, all statistics, logic and economics show that Universal healtch care systems are by far the best system to follow, regardless of what type you do, as the overall health of a society is better, and that is good for the country.

Goldenboy219 · 12-27-07, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteEU

Universal healthcare is a principle that no one in a country goes without health insurance. How you do that, is up to the country. Most countries do it via taxation as its by far the easiest and more efficient way of doing it, but a place like Switzerland has universal healthcare but via private insurance only. Granted Switzerland is thinking of dropping this in favor of a tax based system, due to huge increases in private health insurance, but due to big swiss pharma, many doubt that it will ever get to the vote.

As for choice. It depends again how your system is put together. 30 years ago many UH systems were very "locked" as in you could only goto 1 doctor that the system gave you and so on, today that is not so. You can choose your doctor within reason (like you cant choose a doctor that lives in a different city usualy

), and even your hospital in some systems.

As for going to emergency rooms and finding it crowded with uninsured who should be going to thier primary care doctor. Yes and no. Sure there are no uninsured, and most people do goto thier primary care doctor, but there will always be the idiots who goto the emergency room for trivial things like cuts and bruises and even ingrown toe nails. Its free after all. To combat this, some countries have put in place a symbolic fee you have to pay if the doctors see the injury as trivial. There are also other ways to motivate people not to clog the emergency room with trivial matters, such as on call doctors who come to your home or consult you over the phone. That helps alot too, especially with the biggest group of trivial injury emergency users... mothers and fathers with sick children.

Point is, all statistics, logic and economics show that Universal healtch care systems are by far the best system to follow, regardless of what type you do, as the overall health of a society is better, and that is good for the country.

Your right!!!!

Health in general isnt about choice, its a natural Lockeian right... Think of the children

Lifestyle choice is a good indication of how healthy the majority of people will live after 40.

5 years from now, even under a UHC system, every single person who will require drug-eluting stents will not be able to receive them...

DarkWizard12 · 12-27-07, 04:34 PM

When the government says, "There will be free health insurance for all", what it really means is "It is illegal to be unhealthy".

Jray · 12-28-07, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkWizard12

When the government says, "There will be free health insurance for all", what it really means is "It is illegal to be unhealthy".

Health insurance doesn't force anyone to be healthy it just gives them the option to be healthy. So you comparision is wrong.

But if UHC is so bad why do nations who have recieve cheaper, higher quality healthcare and why are their life expectancy longer? The truth is privatized healthcare has failed in the US which has caused quality to decrease and cost to increase.

DarkWizard12 · 12-28-07, 11:03 AM

Easy, because we are so fat.

You see, we are the fattest nation in the entire world, you can attribut that to Mcdonalds. Its not that our health care is twice as bad, its because the people are twice as sick. You want to do something good, get rid of Mcdonalds and all those fast-food restaurants. Then you'll see some results.

Jray · 12-28-07, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkWizard12

Easy, because we are so fat.

You see, we are the fattest nation in the entire world, you can attribut that to Mcdonalds. Its not that our health care is twice as bad, its because the people are twice as sick. You want to do something good, get rid of Mcdonalds and all those fast-food restaurants. Then you'll see some results.

UK obesity rates are also very high, and european cancer rates are higher than US rates so I doubt the US demand is dramaticaly higher than demand in other nations. The US healthcare system is ranked 37th in the world right ahead of Slovenia. All the nations ahead of the US have universal healthcare.

CMartucci · 12-30-07, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jray

UK obesity rates are also very high, and european cancer rates are higher than US rates so I doubt the US demand is dramaticaly higher than demand in other nations. The US healthcare system is ranked 37th in the world right ahead of Slovenia. All the nations ahead of the US have universal healthcare.

You should first note that the source for that data is nearly 10 years old. It also weighs life expectancy into its equation which isn't a fair measure of health care systems. It doesn't control for the much larger amount of cars America has per capita and crime in big cities, etc. Also, America doesn't have the privatized health care many republicans advocate, so the data isn't really even relevant.

Jray · 12-31-07, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CMartucci

You should first note that the source for that data is nearly 10 years old.

If you think the study is too old then it is up to you to find a more recent one that shows the healthcare system has improved.

Quote:

It also weighs life expectancy into its equation which isn't a fair measure of health care systems. It doesn't control for the much larger amount of cars America has per capita and crime in big cities, etc.

It seems like you just want to make excuses for the poor ranking of the US healthcare system. Life expectancy is relevant because it is directly related with healthcare, but let's see:

Colombia ranks ahead of the US but has the highest homocide rate in the world.

The UAE and Suadi Arabia rank ahead of the US even though traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of deaths in the middle east.

European systems rank among the best in the world but they have haigher cancer rates.

The study doesn't need to control for any other factors because every nation has it's own problems that can strain any healcare system but the US for some reason has not dealt with their problems as well. It is not an accident that the top healthcare systems are public ones.

Quote:

Also, America doesn't have the privatized health care many republicans advocate, so the data isn't really even relevant.

Are you talking about a private system with no government involvement? It will fail. Take away heavy government subsidies and healthcare will become more expensive and less accessible. Take away public funding from pharmaceutical companies and they won't be able to function. It has been proven that public healthcare systems work better than the private system.