What's with America's problem with socialised healthcare?

holbritter said:

Could the difference be that Canada (per the article) has allowed no private healthcare? A combo like in Australia and other places might make the right recipe(?) I'm not sold on either way...all I know is something has got to change. People die there because of the wait...people die here because of the cost.

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Agreed that something has to change. However it has to be market based. Health insurance has not always been this expensive. It was multiple occurences of government tinkering that made it expensive. When I first hit the job market in my 20s, the payroll deductions for healthcare insurance were about a third of what i now pay for internet service, which is not much. Copays cost me just a little more then today's price on a gallon of milk. An overnight hospital stay in 1980 with surgery cost me a grand total of $104.00.

Will Marshall said:

Righto, so I'm from Australia, and here we have socialised healthcare - healthcare administered by the government. Everybody has it, and we also have private health insurance available - lots of people have both private and public healthcare.

So my question is, what's with America's problem with socialised healthcare? I realize that the majority aren't rabidly for or against it and most of the more overt bickering goes on among Congressmen, but socialised healthcare is great. If anything, most Australians believe it should be expanded, because it DOES lower insurance and healthcare costs.

Is it because of the Republican Party's "free-market-at-all-costs" platform? Are people all just still terrified of socialism? Is there a perception that big government is inherently evil and the expansion of public healthcare will infringe on peoples' civil liberties?

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Simply put, the Republican hierarchy are well rewarded by insurance company and mega-healthcare providers and big pharma.

It is in their personal, as well as party, interest to let the big business interests in healthcare run roughshod at the expense of John Q. Public. Let John eat cake.

One has to ask why the cost of healthcare is so outrageously expensive in the U'S. compared to other nations with sufficient healthcare.

And the sheeple who support and vote republican will think, believe and do what their handler's instruct them to think, believe and do.

I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Heck, even President Trump has stated that Australia has a better healthcare system than the U.S. does. In a common sense world, one would think he would take notes and leads from down under. But that's in a common sense world. There seems to be a dire lacking of common sense in the U.S. these days. Alt-reality, make believe and unadulterated bull**** seems to be winning the day as of late.

RabidAlpaca said:

This is why I ignored you the first time. Literally in the same post I said I never supported the ACA but that's all you can talk about. Thread topic be damned.

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If as claimed you never supported it, why are you whining about the republicans fighting it? The ACA drove me out of the private sector health insurance market, because I was not willing to accept a 300% increase in premiums and a 500% increase in deductibles for a policy that would be 100% meaningless until I paid $6000.00 out of pocket in any given year. I truly wish the republicans were trying as hard to repeal the ACA now as they tried to prevent it from becoming law in the first place. That's called working for your constituents.

Will Marshall said:

So what I've heard is a mixture of pretty decent and reasonable points that I disagree with on an ideological level but can understand, and, y'know, conspiracy theories.

1) So far as I know, the whole idea of people fleeing Canada for America's "superior" healthcare is total heresay, and death panels and people dying in waiting rooms are a Republican fiction.

2) I don't necessarily agree with the ACA, but that's mostly because it's full of compromises that really make no sense and undermine the effectiveness of the bill. There are definitely things to criticize regarding the Affordable Care Act, but its ultimate goal is not one of them.

3) Australia's economy is doing fine. Public healthcare isn't disadvantaging other necessary sectors of the economy - you can blame the Liberal Party for that.

4) Let's not get into the whole "Republicans just wanna murder all the poor people" thing. You can criticize Republican economic policy - I certainly do - but don't use hyperbole, it's childish.

5) We still get immigrants. It's just that generally we lock them up on an island and wait for them to die rather than complain about them being in Arizona.

6) I've noiced this theme in some of the responses, which is that people say "well, I mean, MY concept of socialized healthcare is flawed, so we should just stick with the free market and not bother to try, because, like, not EVERY American is dead". And that really doesn't seem like an adequate solution.

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I'll just address number 6. If government had not tinkered so much with the American healthcare system, free market healthcare in the US would still be working fine as it was when I was in my 20s. I am now in my 60s. Competition kept the prices down then.

Helix said:

the right has been convinced that it's horrible by their media. meanwhile, many of them would go bankrupt if they were to get seriously ill. they will then depend on Medicaid if they are financially eligible, which is similar to what most of the first world has by default.

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No.....I am reasonably healthy, even now as a 63 year old. However prior to Obamacare, one of my work colleagues, a couple years older then me needed an emergency quintuple heart bypass. Insurance came through for him. He did not go bankrupt. Without insurance he would have paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000.00

ObamacareFail said:

No.....I am reasonably healthy, even now as a 63 year old. However prior to Obamacare, one of my work colleagues, a couple years older then me needed an emergency quintuple heart bypass. Insurance came through for him. He did not go bankrupt. Without insurance he would have paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000.00

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and as you know, i paid almost two grand for a cut thumb with insurance. our health insurance system depends largely on where you work, where you live, when you started, and a ton of other factors. that's a poor system. however, you and i have been around the block on this topic so many times that i doubt that we are going to dig up some new point of agreement.

Helix said:

and as you know, i paid almost two grand for a cut thumb with insurance. our health insurance system depends largely on where you work, where you live, when you started, and a ton of other factors. that's a poor system. however, you and i have been around the block on this topic so many times that i doubt that we are going to dig up some new point of agreement.

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Sure it was a poor system. The ACA made it worse 10 fold. I think we both agree that healthcare reform was needed. We are just in polar opposition about the direction. I want to go back to what worked before the government tinkered with it and you want a single payer system which this government has proved incapable of running for roughly 70 years even on a relatively small scale. While you paid $2000.00 for a cut thumb, there is much that a single payer system would not cover to begin with. For instance another work colleague under medicare had cataracts removed in both eyes. Technically that was covered under medicare. Problem was the complications he had were not. And that bill was considerably higher then $2000.00

ObamacareFail said:

Sure it was a poor system. The ACA made it worse 10 fold. I think we both agree that healthcare reform was needed. We are just in polar opposition about the direction. I want to go back to what worked before the government tinkered with it and you want a single payer system which this government has proved incapable of running for roughly 70 years even on a relatively small scale. While you paid $2000.00 for a cut thumb, there is much that a single payer system would not cover to begin with. For instance an other work colleague under medicare had cataracts removed in both eyes. Technically that was covered under medicare. Problem was the complications he had were not. And that bill was considerably higher then $2000.00

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i'm not huge on the ACA, as you know. i do like the preexisting conditions protection and the "stay on your parents' insurance until 26" part, though. as for the ACA making everything more expensive in a way that wasn't happening before, that has not been my experience. my premiums have been going up by double digits pretty much every year since i started working. it's a bit better now because of the industry i work in. i think that mine only went up by four bucks a paycheck this time around, which is a complete anomaly compared to the rest of my career. if i told you what i do, though, it would make more sense.

once again, so much of it is where you work, where you live, and when you started. that's a poor model.

Will Marshall said:

Righto, so I'm from Australia, and here we have socialised healthcare - healthcare administered by the government. Everybody has it, and we also have private health insurance available - lots of people have both private and public healthcare.

So my question is, what's with America's problem with socialised healthcare? I realize that the majority aren't rabidly for or against it and most of the more overt bickering goes on among Congressmen, but socialised healthcare is great. If anything, most Australians believe it should be expanded, because it DOES lower insurance and healthcare costs.

Is it because of the Republican Party's "free-market-at-all-costs" platform? Are people all just still terrified of socialism? Is there a perception that big government is inherently evil and the expansion of public healthcare will infringe on peoples' civil liberties?

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The problem is that market prices are more efficient than public supply, when private goods are concerned. Health care is with few exceptions a private good, so producing it publicly or regulating the price will cause waste of resources and bring about a suboptimum. It is really elementary economics. So, if the USA has a problem with social medicine it is that spends too much on it.

Helix said:

i'm not huge on the ACA, as you know. i do like the preexisting conditions protection and the "stay on your parents' insurance until 26" part, though. as for the ACA making everything more expensive in a way that wasn't happening before, that has not been my experience. my premiums have been going up by double digits pretty much every year since i started working. it's a bit better now because of the industry i work in. i think that mine only went up by four bucks a paycheck this time around, which is a complete anomaly compared to the rest of my career. if i told you what i do, though, it would make more sense.

once again, so much of it is where you work, where you live, and when you started. that's a poor model.

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Sounds like you may be getting your insurance through your employer. Your employer may be taking the worst hit. Like millions of others, I had individual insurance. When the ACA was passed, the cost for employer provided insurance was even higher then I was expected to pay on the individual policy. I am sure it's worse on those employed with small businesses as I am.

soylentgreen said:

What a joke of an opinion. the trouble with the american system is only the wealthy can afford it.

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"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
Margaret Thatcher

vasia80 said:

3. I don't have a fear. You know why? Because I don't have a reasonable insurance. You have a platinum one right?

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No..our plan would not be considered a platinum one.

And I know the cost I pay for that insurance is not reasonable. Heck.. I pay more simply because I am on the healthcare industry. The same plan.. with actually more risks is cheaper in my agricultural business. Simply because the insurance can gouge me more in the healthcare industry..

The question is.. what makes you so sure that it will be more reasonable under a socialized plan? I would bet that your plan.. such that it is.. probably pays for more things than Australia's plan and or Canada's socialized plan. So in all likelihood.. to get back to the plan you have today.. you would go on the government socialized plan (for which you would pay considerably more taxes and you would then STILL have to pay for an individual plan to cover things like therapy, outpatient services, durable medical equipment and pharmacueticals etc.)

imagep said:

As a nation, we already pay our healthcare bill, so it's not like we would be taking on an expense that doesn't already exist. It's just a matter of who we pay, the government middleman, or a private third party middleman.

Anyhow, when I did a lot of research into this, over 8 years ago, the government was already paying for 49% of the national healthcare bill. Now, with expanded medicade and the Obummercare insurance subsidies, I would think the government is paying for well over half the bill. It wouldn't really be that much of a stretch to provide medicade for everyone.

Socialized health insurance would take a huge burden off the backs of employers, allowing each employer to use the savings to spend according to their needs (expansion, raises, increased profits, etc). Our economy would boom.

So where would our government find the money? All that has to be done is that congress has to authorize the spending, the treasury takes care of the bookkeeping. That's exactly the same way we find the money to pay for the military, or any other spending.

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Well..most people would HATE to be on Medicaid.

And businesses.. actually don't mind paying for healthcare.. because of the huge tax advantages it gives them.

PIPEWRENCH said:

Not at all. When I had my hip replaced before Obamacare with the same insurance it cost me nothing. After Obama care I had an aneurism of the artery right where my knee bends. Same insurance but now I had to fork over a couple hundred dollars. These 2 stiches were with the same insurance and cost me more than a hip replacement and an aneurism repaired in my knee. I got screwed by the walk-in clinic. They made a surgical operation out of 2 stiches. My insurance would not pay. I don't blame my insurance. Clearly I was price gouged.

What is sad is I went first to the emergency room at Geisinger hospital because it was a Sunday. I waited 2 hours and they finally told me I could get immediate care in another part of their hospital Geisinger walk-in urgent care clinic. So that is what I did. What is sad had I stayed in the emergency room it would not have cost me anything. I had Geisinger insurance the whole time.

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If your insurance would not pay because you were overcharged and the charge was not medically necessary then you should not be charged that much either.. Its very doubtful that legally the clinic could force you to pay a bill when the insurance company determined it was unreasonable and unnecessary.. particularly if they are a preferred provider for that insurance.

Ill health isn't a business opportunity in developed countries.

Manc Skipper said:

Ill health isn't a business opportunity in developed countries.

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hmm.. in almost all countries it is. Or does the rest of Europe not have private healthcare providers

ObamacareFail said:

Sounds like you may be getting your insurance through your employer. Your employer may be taking the worst hit. Like millions of others, I had individual insurance. When the ACA was passed, the cost for employer provided insurance was even higher then I was expected to pay on the individual policy. I am sure it's worse on those employed with small businesses as I am.

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my current insurance is definitely better than it was at other jobs.

jaeger19 said:

If your insurance would not pay because you were overcharged and the charge was not medically necessary then you should not be charged that much either.. Its very doubtful that legally the clinic could force you to pay a bill when the insurance company determined it was unreasonable and unnecessary.. particularly if they are a preferred provider for that insurance.

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The Clinic is open 24/7 like a hospital. They treat stiches as a surgical procedure. Had I gone to my family doctor she would have done it as an office visit. Trust me I argued on the phone quite a bit over this. $400.00 out of pocket for 2 stiches is too much even for an office visit let alone what the insurance already paid. Their argument was that any wound that exposes tissue below the skin is a surgical procedure and they have to be concerned about infection and law suits. They did make a big to do about it. The difference is in my profession I may get stiches more than once a year. I have lost track how many times I have had stiches. Most of the time I paid with my credit card and my boss used to reimburse me because he didn't want our insurance to go up. If they had told me it was going to be $400.00 for my insurance I would have walked out of there and been the first person walking into my family doctors office Monday morning.

Common Sense 1 said:

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
Margaret Thatcher

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The trouble with capitalism is that all the other people's money had been depleted ...and now we have been borrowing and we keep borrowing..more and more

‘As the US demonstrates, when the profit motive is introduced into a health delivery system, ways of gaming the system and outright fraud schemes are easier to devise, and they are a far more profitable business to engage in than treating patients.’ lrb.me/74k

Is it that you prefer to waste 31% of the cost of healthcare in paperwork, billing and checking and noting and defrauding?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n23/dave-lindorff/short-cuts

PIPEWRENCH said:

The Clinic is open 24/7 like a hospital. They treat stiches as a surgical procedure. Had I gone to my family doctor she would have done it as an office visit. Trust me I argued on the phone quite a bit over this. $400.00 out of pocket for 2 stiches is too much even for an office visit let alone what the insurance already paid. Their argument was that any wound that exposes tissue below the skin is a surgical procedure and they have to be concerned about infection and law suits. They did make a big to do about it. The difference is in my profession I may get stiches more than once a year. I have lost track how many times I have had stiches. Most of the time I paid with my credit card and my boss used to reimburse me because he didn't want our insurance to go up. If they had told me it was going to be $400.00 for my insurance I would have walked out of there and been the first person walking into my family doctors office Monday morning.

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So you weren't charged it was your insurance.. and your insurance saw that as an allowable charge.

just so you know.. the real reason is that you paid that 400.00 is because you paid for the convenience of having a clinic open 24/7. They charge like that to make up the costs that they incur being available those hours.. while your doctors clinic.. is only open certain hours, you have to have an appointment etc.. they don't have staff sitting around at 3 am with no one to see.

Common Sense 1 said:

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
Margaret Thatcher

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It makes me wonder if americans can actually think, or are they just only capable of mouthing idiotic cliches like sheeple.

When you consider( laughable concept for an american, i know) that places like new zealand have an economic surplus along with a cradle to grave welfare system then we can see just how stupid such cliches that you throw out are.

jaeger19 said:

So you weren't charged it was your insurance.. and your insurance saw that as an allowable charge.

just so you know.. the real reason is that you paid that 400.00 is because you paid for the convenience of having a clinic open 24/7. They charge like that to make up the costs that they incur being available those hours.. while your doctors clinic.. is only open certain hours, you have to have an appointment etc.. they don't have staff sitting around at 3 am with no one to see.

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No I paid $400.00 out of pocket over and above what the insurance paid. My insurance paid more than I did. They made 2 stiches into a surgical operation. I had a doctor and an assistant as if they were doing surgery. My insurance which happens to be the same as the health care facility I went to denied $400.00 of the charges. They only paid like $500.00 of the total bill.

Trust me before Obamacare I never had any of the problems I am running into. I have had health care my entire life. Blue cross Blue shield until I went to Houston where I switched to Texas medical center PPO which actually provided better coverage for less money. When I moved to PA I switched back to Blue cross Blue shield. When Geisinger took over the area I switched to Geisinger because it was cheaper with cheaper co pay and all my doctors were with Geisinger. Everything was great then came Obamacare. That is when the nightmare began. We need to fix our health care in this country. This Obama care is a nightmare for the middleclass taxpayer. Unless you are a government worker and we are paying for your platinum care.

I am seriously thinking of quitting work. Just do side jobs for cash no taxes the same as the illegals and let all the Obamacare lovers pay my health care, buy my food, heat my house until I can go on SS. Why should I pay $1500.00 a year plus all these copays when I can do the same thing the illegals are doing and get it for free.

soylentgreen said:

It makes me wonder if americans can actually think, or are they just only capable of mouthing idiotic cliches like sheeple.

When you consider( laughable concept for an american, i know) that places like new zealand have an economic surplus along with a cradle to grave welfare system then we can see just how stupid such cliches that you throw out are.

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You are comparing apples to oranges. Absolutely two completely different societies. If you want to move to NZ you must have a needed skill or money to start a business. They do not let millions of illegal aliens into the country and then give them welfare to stay. They do not have an open border policy.

New Zealand population 4.6 million New York city has a larger population then the entire country.

New Zealand has committed to accept 750 refugees per year in its annual quota. This refugee quota has not been raised in nearly 30 years. It was first set at 800 in 1987 but was later reduced. There have also been years when New Zealand has taken less than 750 refugees.


People are just clambering to move to New Zealand.

Will Marshall said:

So what I've heard is a mixture of pretty decent and reasonable points that I disagree with on an ideological level but can understand, and, y'know, conspiracy theories.

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Sans conspiracy, I agree. Misleading headlines, may be. People all over the world believe what they want to believe.

1) So far as I know, the whole idea of people fleeing Canada for America's "superior" healthcare is total heresay, and death panels and people dying in waiting rooms are a Republican fiction.

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Both parties fib, either with "fleeing CA" theories or "shoving grandma off the cliff".
We do have a form or single payer HC at our VA facilities. People are dying while waiting. If that is any indication how SPHC would function, lets take a closer look at how many are suffering from what could potentially be a great program. Lets honestly analyze and look for improvements.

2) I don't necessarily agree with the ACA, but that's mostly because it's full of compromises that really make no sense and undermine the effectiveness of the bill. There are definitely things to criticize regarding the Affordable Care Act, but its ultimate goal is not one of them.

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The ACA was a first attempt. As with everything new, kinks and problems need to be worked out and adjusted

3) Australia's economy is doing fine. Public healthcare isn't disadvantaging other necessary sectors of the economy - you can blame the Liberal Party for that.

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Aside from Australia's economy, what problems and obstacles did your public hc face when first implemented? If we are honest, we have to admit that, as mentioned before, nothing works well right out the gate. We also have to compare citizenry and census.

4) Let's not get into the whole "Republicans just wanna murder all the poor people" thing. You can criticize Republican economic policy - I certainly do - but don't use hyperbole, it's childish.

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Thank you. Both parties/partisans in general, profit from pitching voters against each other, and instead of putting their heads together and coming up with solutions for the people, they thrive on division.

5) We still get immigrants. It's just that generally we lock them up on an island and wait for them to die rather than complain about them being in Arizona.

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Tongue in cheek? The sheer number of undocumented immigrants is something that needs to be addressed, regardless how we feel about illegal immigration. Many will argue to "just send them home", and that is easily written from behind a computer screen. I would guess and hope that most of us are more compassionate than that when confronted with real life.

6) I've noiced this theme in some of the responses, which is that people say "well, I mean, MY concept of socialized healthcare is flawed, so we should just stick with the free market and not bother to try, because, like, not EVERY American is dead". And that really doesn't seem like an adequate solution.

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Changing our HC system is not an easy process. Fact is, many have suffered before ACA, many are still suffering.
We need to educate ourselves and set our partisan bickering aside. The free market isn't without problems. Our HC system if filled with many, if not most, for profit institutions and people (from CNA to MDs). That isn't good for anyone. Insurers and providers have to look at the bottom line to keep the doors open.
Long winded way of saying that we can do better, have to do better. We (USA) are at the forefront of many advances and are priding ourselves in leading the world in many ways. Our HCS is a grim reminder that we can and must do better.