What the opponents always leave out in their howling about the “cost of Communistical health insurance” is that people, and employers, are no longer paying their tithe to for-profit insurance companies.
As posted upthread, from the Los Angeles Times:
The analysis found that the proposal would require: - A total cost of $400 billion per year to cover all healthcare and administrative costs. - Of that, $200 billion of existing federal, state and local funds could be repurposed to go toward the single-payer system. - The additional $200 billion would need to be raised from new taxes.
And, as noted, it is a lot more than insurance companies. For example, Glassdoor tells us that the average salary for a cardiologist in the US is $386K/yr. www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/us-cardiologist-salary-SRCH_IL.0,…
In the UK (socialized medicine, don’t ya know) the number is £89,500 ($122K) less than one-third as much.
What about your average operating room nurse? £19.33 per hour ($26) a third less than the $40/hr in the US.
In the UK (socialized medicine, don’t ya know) the number is £89,500 ($122K) less than one-third as much.
What about your average operating room nurse? £19.33 per hour ($26) a third less than the $40/hr in the US.
How much debt do doctors and nurses in training pile up in the UK, then need to pay on while working, vs the US, where everything has to be rationed by ability to pay?
Now that I have been living in Europe for 15 years, there is no way anyone could convince me that the American health care system has any advantages whatsoever.
I will never move back and health care is reason #1.
power to force providers to accept less than they would in a fair and open market.
DB2,
Regardless of a fool saying that it is also a falsehood.
Private insurers negotiate based on Medicare rates how they pay the providers.
Take this as a rule…if you are agreeing with check over three times as a falsehood then rethinking from an entirely different angle trying to find the truth.
Because nothing you have posted as information so far is the truth.
Of all the developed nations looking at the UK’s imbursement rates means you are driving down into the cheapest of the cheapest nations when it comes to healthcare.
Try France or Germany. Just proving the UK is cheapo is not really the point.
Not only is medical school much less expensive in the UK, but the children of the doctor are getting a less expensive education. Doctors in the US sending their kids to school pay fortunes.
Ironically my dad, a doctor, would tell you his taxes in the US were very low, but his healthcare costs to be insured were huge. I am talking for covering mom and dad on his work related policy. To him low taxes were not low taxes after the costs of healthcare were factored in.
Now imagine owning a manufacturing company in the US. The people, we will avoid the political labels, against a single payer system force you abroad for labor to build your factories.
Luxury goods from Europe can compete with the best of American luxury goods because it is inefficient to hire in the US.
But talk of labor costs for heavy industry is a non starter? Why? It is not even on the radar. This is a massive mismanagement of our economy.
Every other first world country on the planet has universal health care, at much cheaper prices than we have, and we can’t figure this out???
The discussion is over universal, single payer health care. Most other first world countries DO NOT have it.
Britain does, and has near-constant complaints and scandals over waiting lists for what should be routine, but life-saving, care. (To the point that clinics have been caught maintaining unofficial waiting lists to get onto the official waiting lists.)
Canada does, and has a much lower availability of advanced medical equipment that is considered routine in US hospitals.
And both complain about the high cost.
In other words, they can’t make the health care and the finances both work at the same time.
Germany and France provide a very basic level of insurance but mandate that employers provide additional insurance. That isn’t single-payer.
Mexico has a single-provider system that provides a very basic level of medical care and anyone who can afford to buys insurance for a parallel, non-government system.
The US has a single-payer system for a selected audience, and a single-provider system for a different selected audience. Those eligible for the single-payer system disproportionately choose to go without medical care, which plays havoc with our medical-outcomes stats. Those eligible for the single-provider system frequently opt out of it for disease treatment and routine care because it isn’t very good in those areas. (It’s fantastic for trauma.)
And yet, the US has universal health care. Show up at the emergency room and you WILL get treated. Eventually.
2 In other words, they can’t make the health care and the finances both work at the same time.
3 Germany and France provide a very basic level of insurance but mandate that employers provide additional insurance. That isn’t single-payer.
Warrl,
Has me on ignore. A difference of opinion that was minor for both of us.
How he got from 1 to 2 defies all logic.
3 is the definition of any single payer system. A basic level of care is a great deal of care. Supplemental policies are extremely inexpensive.
If Warrl were to read this, asking him for links is useless. Even the worst of bloggers can not find logic in those ideas.
Canada does, and has a much lower availability of advanced medical equipment that is considered routine in US hospitals.
One of the users of a national health system, addressed that some years ago. The health system tracks the usage rate of expensive equipment. When the usage rate approaches a limit, money is spent to buy another machine. How much of USian “superior availability” is because many machines sit idle a significant part of the time, with the lower usage rate resulting in higher per use costs for patients? Here in Motown, it’s a disaster if an auto plant only runs 8 hours/day, 5 days/wk. They want that plant running 20 hrs/day 6-7 days a week. Same thing needs to happen with medical equipment to restrain costs.
We have all heard the story of the “mouse” that was wheeled in to the OR in the middle of the night to have a gall bladder yanked.
And both complain about the high cost.
Everyone whines about costs, all the time, no matter what the cost is. Same with taxes. No matter how many tax cuts are handed out, people still whine their taxes are “too high”, even when the roads they drive on are crumbling and their high school graduate spawn are functionally illiterate.
Now that I have been living in Europe for 15 years, there is no way anyone could convince me that the American health care system has any advantages whatsoever.
I did 15.5 … but 5.5 was military, the other ten as a NATO Civilian employee.
Odd thing was that I joined the army at barely 17 so had almost zero experience with Canadian style single-payer healthcare until I returned to Canada in 2000. I listened to Mad Cap and others telling me how awful it was then was pleasantly surprised when a gangrenous gall bladder forced me to go to ER in serious pain.
They were wonderful, the paramedic holding down the desk wouldn’t even let me show my health card as ER is free to everyone who shows up. They ran me through every test then scheduled me for general surgery at 2am. My family doc gave me a large ration of poop for waiting too long when I went back for follow up … but then commented how amazingly fast I heal! She often joked that she got paid before I left the parking lot but of course it’s true.
Every experience since has done nothing to change my mind including my wife’s breast cancer operation and chemo follow up. The doctors were always great including her two who should have been on stage as a comedy team.
In Germany as a civilian I had very expensive Van Breda ‘Privat’ Insurance mostly paid for by my employer.
And yet, the US has universal health care. Show up at the emergency room and you WILL get treated. Eventually.
Strictly speaking, that’s not really true. They might treat you, but the ER is only obligated to examine you and stabilize you, and then only if you have an emergency condition. Let’s say you were uninsured and had an asthma attack. ER will stabilize you, but after that you are on your own. They don’t provide you with a way to manage your asthma is such a way that your stay out of the the ER in the first place. And same thing for any number of other chronic conditions, hyper tension, high cholesterol, etc. Sure, they’ll fix you up if you have a heart attack, but they won’t do anything to prevent the heart attack.
I’ve posted here before about my drug trafficking activities involving buying cheap inhalers in Spain which are available without a prescription and importing them illegally into the United States (waves at the NSA monitors!) IMO, albuterol is something you shouldn’t need a prescription for. You can’t OD or get high from it and virtually no side effects. It went off patent decades ago, so no one is trying to make back their R&D costs. So there is no reason why it shouldn’t be cheap and easily available. Yet, it ain’t cheap in the US.
In England, you do need a prescription. But the inhalers are free. The reason is simple: It is cheaper to give away inhalers to everybody than treating people in the ER.
One more anecdote: I’ve had the same doctor forever. Originally, he was part of a small practice. The medical office was small but functional. They would weigh you in on a balance beam scale in the hallway. They got bought out by Big Medical Company and moved to a gleaming new office with maple paneling. And they would weigh you in on a digital scale in the hallway. Then they moved to a different gleaming medical office that had a digital scale in each examination room.
I sometimes wonder about that old balance beam scale. I bet it still works perfectly. And I don’t think having a digital scale in each exam room improves health care outcomes. Increases cost sure, but I don’t know about outcomes. Magazines were still out of date in each location, however.
One of the users of a national health system, addressed that some years ago. The health system tracks the usage rate of expensive equipment. When the usage rate approaches a limit, money is spent to buy another machine. How much of USian “superior availability” is because many machines sit idle a significant part of the time, with the lower usage rate resulting in higher per use costs for patients? Here in Motown, it’s a disaster if an auto plant only runs 8 hours/day, 5 days/wk. They want that plant running 20 hrs/day 6-7 days a week. Same thing needs to happen with medical equipment to restrain costs.
There is a local health care provider called Virginia Mason, who provides health care to Starbucks. They would get baristas in complaining of low back pain. So they would schedule an MRI, the results in almost every case would be negative, and so they would prescribe physical therapy.
Then they concluded they could just skip the MRI and go straight to physical therapy. The result was lower costs, faster recoveries, and fewer missed work days. But also less money for the clinic because they were performing fewer procedures, which they eventually worked out by getting higher insurance reimbursements.
That’s a lot of karate to improve patient outcomes. I’m sure most providers just do the MRI. Helps the bottom line, right? But I’m skeptical that our dominance in MRI machines does anything meaningful to improve health care outcomes. And objectively our health care is straight up worse than most developed countries:
And that’s the part I don’t get about people who want to defense the status quo. Paying more for better makes sense. It is your health after all. But paying more for worse? What is the logic is paying extra for worse health care? What else to you pay extra for to get a measurably worse product?
Paying more for better makes sense. It is your health after all. But paying more for worse?
I tried having that conversation with a couple coworkers over the years. Fruitless. They will opine that the US has the best health care in the world. When I point out the other countries that have longer life expectancy, they assert it’s because the other countries have different gene pools. I ask them where they think white USians came from, if not from that European gene pool? They are unshakeable. Completely resistant to facts.
white life expectancy in US 77.6 years
life expectancy in France 82.58
life expectancy in Germany 80.94
life expectancy in the UK 81.2
life expectancy in Ireland 82.3
life expectancy in Italy 83.2
Where does most of the white USian gene pool come from?
Fun tidbit, Hispanics in the US have a longer life expectancy than whites, 78.8 vs 77.6
That’s a lot of karate to improve patient outcomes. I’m sure most providers just do the MRI. Helps the bottom line, right?
I have been seeing a PT off and on for four years now. I have never had an MRI regardless back or whatever.
You are making an assumption based on next to nothing.
As for the complexities? If that is your only exposure to the healthcare system on this topic it would seem complex, but billing deals with this on both sides of the table day in and day out. It is all part of the job.
If we called the internal combustion engine complicated we would not stop getting our cars fixed. Of frankly think anything of $20 per hour mechanics other than a job well done.
Fun tidbit, Hispanics in the US have a longer life expectancy than whites, 78.8 vs 77.6.
While most Latinos have been here for generations, all immigrants have an extra 5 years of life expectancy on average. Something in the challenge of immigrating and working harder extends life.
The discussion is over universal, single payer health care. Most other first world countries DO NOT have it.
True there are different systems around the world.
However, the arguments against any proposal for American health care will be the same—-it’s socialist and it won’t work.
Never mind that all 3 of the other types of systems around the world are cheaper and probably better.
The UK and Canada have single payer systems where almost everything is run by the government.
Germany and Switzerland have “insurance mandates” which more or less cover everyone.
France has a hybrid system with a base national insurance, supplemented with private insurance. The base system covers 80% of the medical expenses (and 100% for poor people). The supplemental insurance is cheap—about $150/month. Co-pays at the doctor are almost nothing—-I think the standard is €2.
The last would be my proposal for the USA. Extend Medicare to everyone, then cover extras with private supplemental policies.
But even then, the cries about socialism would be deafening.
“Extend Medicare to everyone, then cover extras with private supplemental policies.Extend Medicare to everyone, then cover extras with private supplemental policies.”
If you want to be ‘like France’, then you’ll need to impose a 21% Value Added Tax on everything. Car prices will go up at least 21%. Clothing? Up 21%. Gasoline? up 21%. Heating oil? Up 21%. Everything but food up 21%. That tax on top of state sales tax.
You on board?
BTW - Medicare ain’t free - in costs you $$$ for the basic, more $$$ for the supplement, and even more dollars for the drug plan.
If you are making, say, $100,000 a year salary, Medicare will cost you several thousand a year - 3 or 4 thousand for individual coverage. Spouse makes same? Another 3-4 thousand as you hit the second tier of prices for Medicare.
Now, the ‘poor’ and ‘non-working’? Free? Maybe but Medicare is not free. Everyone pays.
Most hospitals and a lot of doctor groups would go out of business with Medicare re-imbursement rates.
When I was working, my healthcare costs for a single - were FREE to me. Now, might cost some bucks. It was family coverage that was expensive.
but 5.5 was military, the other ten as a NATO Civilian employee.