The notion that the nations which have a Universal Healthcare systems are not in the red, have double the tax rates from us in the US and do not have LONGER waiting lists for care that you can get tomorrow in the US, is the desperate rhetoric of those who wallow in self inflicted denial.
Interesting post.
However, while these countries you mention do have higher tax rates and waiting lists their economies are doing quite well and their waiting lists are minimal. The german system, which uses private health corps to provide healthcare, is an exemplary system.
Germany, France, Canada and GB are in a desperate debate about how to reign in the vast costs of running their healthcare systems which thanks to Government regulations and mandated cuts require long waiting times for things as basic as acid reflux.
They are in fact not in desperate debate, though the do wish to reign in costs. there isnt a nation in the world that doesnt, including the USA.
Where are the statistics that show the number of deaths caused as a result of waiting to find a specialist for critical operations of which there is a tremendous shortage in those nations and the reason many who rich enough to afford can bypass their own nations systems and come to the US to get the necessary care. But those statistics are hard to find because the nations who have UHC bury them or ignore the data.
Really? How curious. Perhaps they just don't exist.
I had a recent debate with a Canadian friend that sums up the mentality of those who have NEVER known any other system other than Government run systems; I asked her if she was okay with the long wait times for things as mundane as acid reflux. Her response was basically that she had NO problem waiting for something as mundane as acid reflux if someone else had a higher need. My response was; WHY SHOULD ANYONE HAVE TO WAIT?
If you order a new custom made sofa, do you expect to receive it the next day?
Wait times exist in the US also. Its just that they depend on ability to pay rather than need.
That is the exact point. It is a point of view of the citizens of nations who have never known any other system where they view waiting as just a fact of life. Here in the USA, we don’t have a concept of what it means to wait for something as mundane as acid reflux, let alone the critical importance of heart bypass surgery.
Of course you do, the under-insured or the un-insured endure much worse conditions such as receiving sub-standard emergency room care, battling with insurance companies or enduring large debts post treatment.
In those nations I mentioned above, wait times for heart bypass surgery can run from three months to three years. Many have died just waiting for a doctor who can perform those operations.
Waiting lists in other industrialized countries are almost always for elective surgeries and procedures – no country has a waiting list for emergency procedures, and virtually no country has waiting lists for primary care visits.
In the USA, they wouldn't have released you from the hospital if you came in with that condition. Why would ANYONE want what Canadians, Great Britons, the French and Germans have?
Yet every country has what they have or wants it.
What a vast lie from this administration to suggest that the COSTS associated with such a program will be a mere $1 trillion and that most of that cost will be covered by fixing inefficiencies. It is a vast LIE that the Government can do ANYTHING better than the private sector and for LESS cost. There is not one shred of credible evidence that anything Obama claims will ever be a reality.
Why are you telling us 'It is a vast LIE that the Government can do ANYTHING better than the private sector and for LESS cost.'? The gov never claimed it and in some cases the government is the best provider for some services.
In Canada, a nation awash with oil and a net exporter, gas is twice that of their biggest importer the good old USA. Their individual tax rates are higher than those in the USA. The taxes on goods are higher than those in the USA and many drive across the border for the cheaper prices on clothes and other products even after they pay the duties to get the goods back into their own nation. Even with all those additional taxes, the Canadian Healthcare system is in BIG trouble; as are those in GB, France and Germany. Pretending that they are not is dishonest and without that debate, any efforts by Europeans and Canadians to argue their systems are better is laughable.
None of the above is actually true. Canada is doing fine, as are the other countries.
The notion that you are not going to have to pay a much higher cost for Obama’s healthcare plan requires more than willful denial, but willful ignorance. The notion that we ALL are not going to be paying a substantial price for the Obama Stimulus plan requires similar willful ignorance. The notion that Obama’s plans are not killing the American economy requires a stunning level willful ignorance.
Id be interested to see how Americans could end up paying even more than they do now when they already pay more than the rest of the world. Im sure that Americans are more than capable of matching the efficiencies and achievements of the other modern nations.