4 ms·

My personal suggestion for a good balanced system is that most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs like going to the doctor for a checkup, m

My personal suggestion for a good balanced system is that most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs like going to the doctor for a checkup, most of the cost for one of things like a broken leg but that society pays for more serious and longer term situations like cancer, heart surgeries where you are supposed to stay at the hospital for a longer time. I.e. no one should be bankrupted because they get a serious illness. With regards to France healthcare system here is an article who seems to think it wont survive though. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-03/frances-health-care-system-is-going-broke https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-03/frances-h...

jacquesm 10y ago
Yes, those poor people with recreational broken legs really should pay for their own work. That's only about 25K or so in a bad case without further complications... /s
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Please read what I actually wrote instead of just knee-jerk reacting to your own prejudice. I said MOST people should pay MOST of the bill. Do you really think I am talking about those with least amount of money.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    You wrote: > most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs like going to the doctor for a checkup, most of the cost for one of things like a broken leg Most people are poor. Wealthy people are the exception and most people would not be able to pay for even the simplest procedures. They typically can't pay for a new washing machine if their current one breaks down.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Most people in the west aren't poor just like most people aren't wealthy. Most people are in the middle. There is a large number of people who can't afford to buy a washing machine but it's not most people.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Most people in the west aren't poor just like most people aren't wealthy. Most people are in the middle. Wrong, income distribution isn't normal, it's bottom-heavy, and most people are well below the mean.
        pdkl95 10y ago
        https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2015 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2015 Exactly. In 2015, most (50.08666%) wage earners earned less that $30,000/year. While it isn't a majority, the fact that 3-in-10 (29.72726%) earn less than $15,000/year is a travesty.
      - barrkel 10y ago
        Most people are in the middle Of the income or wealth distribution - not a hope, it's Pareto all the way. You've got a really warped view of the world there.
    - bradknowles 10y ago
      This is why I liked the health care system in Belgium, where my wife and I lived for almost eight years. In Belgium, you are charged based on your income, and they don't ask you how much you can pay when you get admitted. As US ex-pats, we made enough money that we were in the top payment bracket. Yet, for a significant surgery that kept my wife in the hospital in a private room for two weeks, we still paid less for the whole surgery plus hospital room WITHOUT insurance, than we would have paid in the US but with insurance. That kind of social medicine does actually work, and work pretty well.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        Belgium is pretty fair. NL requires you to pay between 100 and 150 euros per month or so (kids are free) and that covers everything, the rest is paid from the tax base so you already pay the income dependent part. The only bit that's nasty about it is the deductible, they really screw the poor people on that because of course only the cheap plans have high deductibles so those that can afford the least will end up with the highest costs when something does go wrong.
ido 10y ago
The problem is that people then tend to forgo preventive care & routine checkups if they don't have to (especially poor people), and in the long term end up costing a lot more when they do get treatment once their situation is far worse.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  No thats actually not true which Denmark has lots of data to show. It's 100% free to go to the doctor yet a lot of people don't go for checkups it's not a common thing to do. Furthermore the situation is even worse for men over 50. So access to healthcare has very little to do with that.
  - mistersquid 10y ago
    Earlier you write: > Its important to remember that in a state economy where > healthcare is free or semi free it's operated as a cost > center and thus has budgets that are politically mandated > not determined by market demand at least not directly. and later write: > My personal suggestion for a good balanced system is that > most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs > like going to the doctor for a checkup, most of the cost for > one of things like a broken leg but that society pays for > more serious and longer term situations like cancer, heart > surgeries where you are supposed to stay at the hospital for > a longer time. But here > It's 100% free to go to the doctor yet a lot of people don't go for checkups it's not a common thing to do. you allude to Danish data that show prospective patients do not take advantage of healthcare even if that cost is 100% subsidized. So which is it? Does healthcare that is 100% subsidized distort demand so that people seek unnecessary care, or is demand so inelastic that people and populations who would benefit from it decline to use it? EDIT: add third in situ quotation. Add comma in last sentence/question. Change pronoun to conjunction in last sentence; pluralize noun.
    - mhneu 10y ago
      The ranking member of US Senate intelligence committee said "1000 paid Russian trolls are spreading disinformation on US social media" And recently said >Be careful what you read on the internet because paid trolls are influencing what is discussed. Perhaps parent poster is getting his info from disinformation sources like RT, Breitbart, Fox News, IJR, Limbaugh etc.
mhneu 10y ago
That article is from 2013 and predicts crisis in as little as 3 years. It's 2017. Be careful with articles about single payer healthcare systems in the US. Most similar countries to the US have functional single payer plans. It's a false talking point pushed by conservative media that those systems don't work well. Conservative media pushes those falsehoods because the media is funded by the very wealthy and those who want to cut taxes to line their own pockets at the expense of most Americans.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  And the french started cutting benefits already in 2014 to make sure that didn't happen.
  - mhneu 10y ago
    Right. So you're saying the French single payer system works, with political modification as needed over time. The issue that might make single payer difficult in America is we don't trust our political system to manage good programs, because the GOP is committed to destroying government (to benefit the super rich) rather than trying to get things done.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      No I am saying what I said originally that there are issues with the single payer system as it's based on tax money and thus can't make it's own money.

jacquesm 10y ago

Yes, those poor people with recreational broken legs really should pay for their own work. That's only about 25K or so in a bad case without further complications... /s

ThomPete 10y ago
Please read what I actually wrote instead of just knee-jerk reacting to your own prejudice. I said MOST people should pay MOST of the bill. Do you really think I am talking about those with least amount of money.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  You wrote: > most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs like going to the doctor for a checkup, most of the cost for one of things like a broken leg Most people are poor. Wealthy people are the exception and most people would not be able to pay for even the simplest procedures. They typically can't pay for a new washing machine if their current one breaks down.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Most people in the west aren't poor just like most people aren't wealthy. Most people are in the middle. There is a large number of people who can't afford to buy a washing machine but it's not most people.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Most people in the west aren't poor just like most people aren't wealthy. Most people are in the middle. Wrong, income distribution isn't normal, it's bottom-heavy, and most people are well below the mean.
      - pdkl95 10y ago
        https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2015 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2015 Exactly. In 2015, most (50.08666%) wage earners earned less that $30,000/year. While it isn't a majority, the fact that 3-in-10 (29.72726%) earn less than $15,000/year is a travesty.
    - barrkel 10y ago
      Most people are in the middle Of the income or wealth distribution - not a hope, it's Pareto all the way. You've got a really warped view of the world there.
  - bradknowles 10y ago
    This is why I liked the health care system in Belgium, where my wife and I lived for almost eight years. In Belgium, you are charged based on your income, and they don't ask you how much you can pay when you get admitted. As US ex-pats, we made enough money that we were in the top payment bracket. Yet, for a significant surgery that kept my wife in the hospital in a private room for two weeks, we still paid less for the whole surgery plus hospital room WITHOUT insurance, than we would have paid in the US but with insurance. That kind of social medicine does actually work, and work pretty well.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Belgium is pretty fair. NL requires you to pay between 100 and 150 euros per month or so (kids are free) and that covers everything, the rest is paid from the tax base so you already pay the income dependent part. The only bit that's nasty about it is the deductible, they really screw the poor people on that because of course only the cheap plans have high deductibles so those that can afford the least will end up with the highest costs when something does go wrong.

ido 10y ago

The problem is that people then tend to forgo preventive care & routine checkups if they don't have to (especially poor people), and in the long term end up costing a lot more when they do get treatment once their situation is far worse.

ThomPete 10y ago
No thats actually not true which Denmark has lots of data to show. It's 100% free to go to the doctor yet a lot of people don't go for checkups it's not a common thing to do. Furthermore the situation is even worse for men over 50. So access to healthcare has very little to do with that.
- mistersquid 10y ago
  Earlier you write: > Its important to remember that in a state economy where > healthcare is free or semi free it's operated as a cost > center and thus has budgets that are politically mandated > not determined by market demand at least not directly. and later write: > My personal suggestion for a good balanced system is that > most people pay most of the cost for normal healthcare costs > like going to the doctor for a checkup, most of the cost for > one of things like a broken leg but that society pays for > more serious and longer term situations like cancer, heart > surgeries where you are supposed to stay at the hospital for > a longer time. But here > It's 100% free to go to the doctor yet a lot of people don't go for checkups it's not a common thing to do. you allude to Danish data that show prospective patients do not take advantage of healthcare even if that cost is 100% subsidized. So which is it? Does healthcare that is 100% subsidized distort demand so that people seek unnecessary care, or is demand so inelastic that people and populations who would benefit from it decline to use it? EDIT: add third in situ quotation. Add comma in last sentence/question. Change pronoun to conjunction in last sentence; pluralize noun.
  - mhneu 10y ago
    The ranking member of US Senate intelligence committee said "1000 paid Russian trolls are spreading disinformation on US social media" And recently said >Be careful what you read on the internet because paid trolls are influencing what is discussed. Perhaps parent poster is getting his info from disinformation sources like RT, Breitbart, Fox News, IJR, Limbaugh etc.

mhneu 10y ago

That article is from 2013 and predicts crisis in as little as 3 years. It's 2017. Be careful with articles about single payer healthcare systems in the US. Most similar countries to the US have functional single payer plans. It's a false talking point pushed by conservative media that those systems don't work well. Conservative media pushes those falsehoods because the media is funded by the very wealthy and those who want to cut taxes to line their own pockets at the expense of most Americans.

ThomPete 10y ago
And the french started cutting benefits already in 2014 to make sure that didn't happen.
- mhneu 10y ago
  Right. So you're saying the French single payer system works, with political modification as needed over time. The issue that might make single payer difficult in America is we don't trust our political system to manage good programs, because the GOP is committed to destroying government (to benefit the super rich) rather than trying to get things done.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    No I am saying what I said originally that there are issues with the single payer system as it's based on tax money and thus can't make it's own money.