38 ms·

- health care I disagree with this one. First, we effectively have government mandated healthcare now: hospitals aren't allowed to turn people away. Would you

- health care I disagree with this one. First, we effectively have government mandated healthcare now: hospitals aren't allowed to turn people away. Would you like to change that? Have people dying in the waiting room if they can't prove insurance? Or people not being picked up by an ambulance because they were out for a run and didn't have their insurance card on them (or worse, being profiled about whether they're likely to pay)? I think most people, when it comes down to it, think some level of healthcare is a service everyone in the U.S. is entitled to, just because we can provide it and nobody wants to see people dying on the streets or in hospital waiting rooms. If you disagree with that, then I guess we can just agree to disagree. But assuming you agree that everyone should be guaranteed some level of care, then it's just a matter of efficiently providing it. Here we get to where "insurance" is a fundamentally flawed system for delivering health care. With insurance, risk is spread out so everyone pays (cost of healthcare) * P(need of health care). The issue is everyone has dramatically different P's so it's impossible to pool the risk effectively. If you have a pre-existing condition, then your P is 100% and no insurer in their right mind is going to want to accept you. If you get diagnosed with something, you won't be able to change insurance providers, you'll be desperately tied to your current provider, etc. Now the government could step in as it has now with Obamacare in the U.S., and stop insurers from blocking pre-existing conditions, but then to make that economically viable you need to require citizens to pay for health insurance... So all told, if you come from the perspective that we're a rich enough country to provide some level of health care to our citizens, then the best, most efficient way to do it, is to have the government involved.

randyrand 11y ago
Start a hospital and your obligation to accept all ECU patients will be the smallest of your worries - a law which I agree with. Every. Little. Detail. about healthcare is regulated. From the years of doctors education, from where they must go to school, to who can do what procedures, to how many volts your power supply can ripple, to the brand of emergency generator your hospital is allowed to use, to they types of investments your hospital is allowed to make, to the types of antiquated file formats your hospital records must support. I am not even scratching the surface. It's not that the regulations are bad intentioned or even bad ideas, its that following them is huge, huge overhead that prevents innovation and competition. Heck, the state has essentially conspired with the AMA to limit the number of doctors. It's a classic barrier to entry exmaple that professions lobby for. And it's the reason a highly trained doctors still need to perform the majority of simple procedures. Because that how the doctors want it. Depending on your state, there are between 800,000 and 1,500,000 pages of health regulations. The affordable care act is 20,000 pages alone, and that is just one regulation among hundreds. Healthcare is the most over regulated industry in the United States. Bar none. And it has been a disaster. AS for preexising conditions, my stance is that If the taxpayers want that, then the tax payers are more than welcome to foot the bill. It doesn't even make sense to have insurance companies, which insure against risk, to provide it.

randyrand 11y ago

Start a hospital and your obligation to accept all ECU patients will be the smallest of your worries - a law which I agree with. Every. Little. Detail. about healthcare is regulated. From the years of doctors education, from where they must go to school, to who can do what procedures, to how many volts your power supply can ripple, to the brand of emergency generator your hospital is allowed to use, to they types of investments your hospital is allowed to make, to the types of antiquated file formats your hospital records must support. I am not even scratching the surface. It's not that the regulations are bad intentioned or even bad ideas, its that following them is huge, huge overhead that prevents innovation and competition. Heck, the state has essentially conspired with the AMA to limit the number of doctors. It's a classic barrier to entry exmaple that professions lobby for. And it's the reason a highly trained doctors still need to perform the majority of simple procedures. Because that how the doctors want it. Depending on your state, there are between 800,000 and 1,500,000 pages of health regulations. The affordable care act is 20,000 pages alone, and that is just one regulation among hundreds. Healthcare is the most over regulated industry in the United States. Bar none. And it has been a disaster. AS for preexising conditions, my stance is that If the taxpayers want that, then the tax payers are more than welcome to foot the bill. It doesn't even make sense to have insurance companies, which insure against risk, to provide it.