7 ms·

Good news is that the amount of health care spending is a choice. E.g. other western countries are running a health care cost to GDP ratio from 10%-13%, sometim

Good news is that the amount of health care spending is a choice. E.g. other western countries are running a health care cost to GDP ratio from 10%-13%, sometimes offering vastly superior and equitable outcomes than in the US. The bad news is that this is a choice Congress and Senate are taking on behalf of the American people. And with the partisan divide and lack of agreement on fundamental values, things won't really change. Add in a rapidly aging population, and being cognizant of the per capita health care spending steeply increasing at later stages of life, kicking the can down the road won't make the later adjustment any easier...

xmj 9y ago
Socialism in healthcare brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives.
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  A free market also rations. Just with entirely different acceptance criterion. Criterion which (when applied to health care) happen to not intersect with most mainstream systems of ethics and morality. Constrainted, non-infinite supply, basically infinite demand. What a great business to be in!
  - problems 9y ago
    To be fair you can't exactly call the current system in the US free market. There are ridiculous restrictions on hospitals and insurance companies that prevent proper competition from occurring in many cases. While single payer is often a better system, it's not without its problems - in Canada ER wait times are ridiculous, my sister had to wait 10 hours recently and if you want to find a GP? Good luck. Everyone is booked solid. I thought Obamacare seemed like a good compromise to be honest. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's been a miraculous solution. I think some sort of free market solution with a safety net on the low end could do the job, but I don't know what that would look like. And I don't think we've seen any proposals in that direction.
    - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
      I live in Canada. Things vary. For sure triage is in place in ER like anywhere else. But I've sat in many an ER with my kids, my mother in law (cancer), and many friends and myself and honestly I've always felt their scheduling was fair considering the priorities and demand. But right now I can see my family doctor with 1 day notice, most times same day, and they have someone on-call for phone 14 hours a day and on weekends. Mostly I can avoid ER and drop-in clinic visits completely.
- logophobia 9y ago
  And a free-market healthcare system means letting poor people die, which in my opinion is even worse. There are no good solutions here.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- anentropic 9y ago
  Except when it doesn't Plus universal access, which is pretty much how you'd judge if a country is civilised or not.
- DanBC 9y ago
  The US spends more as a percentage of GDP than any other G& nation, but has worse life expectancy rates. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-compare-internationally/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-com... Ignoring insurance spending: the US government spends more on healthcare than the UK government, and gets worse outcomes across many (but not all) measures.
- Fraterkes 9y ago
  This always seems such a strange view to me, like you are ignoring that the us is both the only rich western country without single payer and also a country with an infamously bad healthcare situation.
  - stupidhn 9y ago
    >This always seems such a strange view to me Well as someone from Canada, living in a provincial capital, who can't get a doctor (for years), I'd say I agree with the OP. I guess the family doctor waiting list I've been on for two years and counting is simply a "bogeyman".
    - Kluny 9y ago
      Are you talking about Victoria? Because I hear lots of complaints from people living here that they can't get a GP, waits are awful, etc etc. But I pretty much always get in to see a doctor within 45 minutes if I drop in, and every time I actually try to access healthcare it seems to work much better than my friends led me to believe it would.
      - stupidhn 9y ago
        >Are you talking about Victoria? No, but it's a problem coast to coast, apparently. >every time I actually try to access healthcare it seems to work much better than my friends led me to believe it would. You sound healthy. Not everyone is so lucky.
        health_in_usa 9y ago
        I'm curious about this - why are other people able to get doctors while you are unable to (asking in utmost earnestness)? Also, it seems that your condition isn't life-threatening (considering you're posting here and all). While the average, generally healthy, person will likely need to wait longer, they at least have access to care in developed countries outside the US. The final point I would add is that private healthcare is still available, even if only available in a different country. I think that's a reasonable trade off- most people can get care readily, while those who need more can pay more to get more timely care.
- health_in_usa 9y ago
  This is a common argument but basically just a bogeyman. People with disposable income/high healthcare needs aren't dying in countries with single-payer insurance. Indeed, they're able to purchase private healthcare, while the broader population gets better health than the US population. Honestly, it looks like this 'socialism' thing works a lot better for peoples' health than what's happening in the US.
- notsofastmister 9y ago
  I've lived in multiple European countries and have never seen any of the rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages or others that you list. Treatment I've known people go through include cancer therapy, orthopedic surgery, eye laser treatment, chronic pain management, casts after accidents, and others.
  - fetbaffe 9y ago
    Sweden has all of those problems https://www.svt.se/nyheter/akut-brist-pa-vardplatser-i-hela-landet https://www.svt.se/nyheter/akut-brist-pa-vardplatser-i-hela-...
    - stupidhn 9y ago
      >Sweden has all of those problems It seems like healthy people spend a bit of time in wealthy nations with socialized health care and see nothing wrong with the system. Live it. Have friends and family suffer illness or disability and try to find treatment. There is very little preventative care where I'm from because the doctors have no time. It's emergency after emergency. So, sure, in Canada you won't break the bank if you dislocate your shoulder and have to go to the ER. But any special procedures and you'll be waiting years sometimes for an appointment.
      - fetbaffe 9y ago
        Are you saying that Sweden does not have these problems? Based on what? Do you live there? Any facts? US problems in health care are not the same as the Swedish problems. Different problems, different solutions. Disclosure: I live in Sweden and follow the health care debate here.
        fetbaffe 9y ago
        To dispel the myth about the Swedish "free" health care system, today about 650 000 swedes have private health care insurance, 70% paid by the employer. This is on top on the already public tax funded health care system. So basically Sweden is slowly introducing the US system. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/privat-sjukvardsforsakring-beskattas-fran-nasta-ar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/privat-sjukvardsforsakrin...
- pjmorris 9y ago
  And capitalism in health care brings 29 million uninsured. Ask them about rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages.
  - fetbaffe 9y ago
    Not sure you can blame capitalism here, because capitalism is economic system, not a political system, i.e capitalism and socialism is not it's counterparts because they are different entities, apples & oranges. Health care in US is political regulated system, badly done as well. Yes, you can have capitalism and government funded health care system.
- forvelin 9y ago
  Please drop your pride for a second and take a look how things proceed in Europe in terms of healthcare. There is no waiting lists or rationing and many countries do well with this setup. It has been years since Soviet Union collapsed, it is amazing to see same boogeyman yet again.
  - stupidhn 9y ago
    >There is no waiting lists or rationing and many countries do well with this setup. Look at Canada, where this stuff is happening in spades. I'm living it.
    - pikzen 9y ago
      Do you realize that this is happening in Canada because certain people are pushing for privatized health care, draining more and more resources away from the public health services, causing the service quality to go down? It's a tried and tested technique. Take a well working system which doesn't generate profits, push to reduce costs, entirely destroying the service then point it out and say "See? It doesn't work. Better privatize it!"
      - refurb 9y ago
        Wow! That's a serious stretch. There is almost no private healthcare in Canada right now. Doctors are banned from "straddling the fence". They either have to go 100% public or 100% private. The reason for the waitlists in Canada are complex, but cost control is one of the reasons.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Which European country has no waiting lists for non-trivial procedures?
    - panzer_wyrm 9y ago
      How often do you need non trivial procedures? Surgical operations are split into 2 groups - planned and unplanned. In planned enter people that could wait a bit. If there is good medical reason that you cannot wait you get the treatment on the spot. You only have real waiting lists for transplants.
- smt88 9y ago
  > Socialism in healthcare brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages This isn't always true. The UK is single-payer, and their wait times are lower than in the US[1]. Even if that were true, those things are acceptable on average as long as outcomes improve. Australia, the UK, and France (all single-payer) have longer life expectancy[2] than the US. In fact, the UK is doing better than the US in nearly every health-related metric[3] > and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives. So "better care for people who can pay more" is a better system? That's what we want when dealing with people's lives? If anything should be socialized, it's health care. No one should die because they weren't born with the opportunity to work a high-paying job or accumulate wealth. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/25/gp-appointment-waiting-times-in-us-worse-than-nhs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/25/gp-appointme... 2. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht... 3. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/20...
  - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
    "So "better care for people who can pay more" is a better system?" Don't phrase this as an alternative - those able to pay more can still buy themselves better care, they're being denied nothing except to watch the poor die of illness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_medicine_in_the_UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_medicine_in_the_UK
    - smt88 9y ago
      You're right. A better way to phrase it is this: "Health-care quality in proportion to wealth" -- the poor get worse care because they can't afford to pay for gold-standard care.
      - zip1234 9y ago
        This is OK as long as there is a sufficiently high floor on the quality of service that the poor receive. Someone has to pay for the advanced treatments, drugs, machinery, and training.
- fetbaffe 9y ago
  Socialism is definitely not the answer, however many European systems are not directly socialism, there are many different ways of solving health care, US system is just too expensive.
- Loic 9y ago
  Our family live in a socialist country as seen through the US American lens: Germany. Germany is interesting, depending of your annual income and your work contract, you can either go with a private health insurance and a public health insurance. Only about 10% of the population is going with the private system. Once you decided to go private, you cannot go back to the public insurance. At the moment, a lot of people regret their switch to the private system, because with low interest rates, the insurance costs have been increasing drastically. In fact, proponent of a total privatization of the German health insurance system are now backtracking and thinking about the reverse, stopping the private system (but if the interest rates rocket again, I suppose the private system will make money again). For that, Germany is pretty interesting as it allows observation of two parallel systems within the same country with the "best case scenario" for the private system because only rich people and state employees are allowed to go with a fully private health insurance. My personal opinion is that health insurance like education is a basic "right" but this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of one approach or another, just an opinion.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    ...only rich people and state employees are allowed to go with a fully private health insurance. Wow, it seems there may have been an interesting series of political deals that led to these particular eligibility criteria.
- sametmax 9y ago
  I'm french. This morning my girlfriend was sick. She called her doc, got an appointment for the very afternoon. The visit, buying the med and getting a certificate for 3 days off work took us all in all 2 hours. She paid most of the bills using her health care card, so in total it was less than 50 euros from her pocket. The day off will be paid in full. Tell me again how we suffered from "waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives". Cause right now my life is god damn awesome. It has been for the last 3 decades, including when I got malaria in Africa and the french system refunded me, or when I break my arms multiple times, or got my appendice removed. I always though that the US system was that bad compared to ours from the people POV because french companies paid a lot more. Now I see it's not even the case.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > Cause right now my life if god damn awesome. Maybe, but Le Pen got a lot more interest than she should have. If the economy was roaring and France was "awesome" would that happen?
    - pikzen 9y ago
      Are you conflating the economy in general with healthcare simply because you have no argument? Le Pen voters are angry for some part, yes. They're the ones with the fewest resources, yes. And you know what? They still get the same health care as anyone else.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        I'm saying the French people undermine your testimonial better than I can. The typical argument (all over this discussion) for bureaucratic medicine is "it's all over Europe and it's awesome!" But I don't think Europe thinks it has everything figured out. One of the consequences of government-provided services, for example, is that it pits native citizens against 'new' and aspiring citizens on the years that everyone decides life is a zero sum game.
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  Waiting lists beat the status quo of "no procedures for you!"
- cafebabbe 9y ago
  > Socialism in healthcare What you even mean by "socialism in healthcare" ? Is it a trigger-word for Americans so they switch off their brain ? Anyway, in most west EU countries, public-run health care works very well. It's more efficient by a vast margin : no marketing cost, no middle-man overhead, no for-profit requirement. In fact in France we are currently evaluating getting rid of private sector altogether, as recent reports showed it would be much cheaper and better overall.
- BrandonM 9y ago
  I know plenty of family members in the US who have waited months for health care procedures. Being poor or rural brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives.
- rwj 9y ago
  People shouldn't confuse single-payer with socialism. In many single-payer systems, the government will put a limit on what they are willing to pay for various services, but those services are provided by private entities.
panzer_wyrm 9y ago
To bring us costs to western europe levels you need to have 1. Slash labor compensation 2. Slash medicine prices. 3. Reduce amenities in hospitals 4. Reduce medical student debt. 5. Reduce equipment cost 6. Reduce somewhat the freedom of patients to choose doctors and doctors to choose patients. 7. Outright kill hospital prices. 8. Reduce malpractice insurance. Reduce malpractice compensation. 9. Forbid direct medicine marketing to consumers and doctors. Any of those is hard on its own. Combined - it is impossible.
- rileymat2 9y ago
  Why suggest reducing malpractice insurance and reducing malpractice compensation instead of reducing malpractice?
  - panzer_wyrm 9y ago
    First because reducing malpractice is a goal that does not depend on the way a system is funded. We should reduce medical errors full stop. The two you mentioned give direct costs increase and indirect in the form of defensive medicine. UnNecessary treatments because the doctor is scared of potential lawsuits could event hurt patients since there is no such thing as procedure without risk or complications.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Considering the plague of lawyers with which USA is burdened, there is no reason to believe that reducing malpractice would reduce malpractice compensation or malpractice insurance.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  It's only impossible because it's so had to get everybody to agree on a plan. To reduce healthcare costs, the USA really just needs a leader who's good at making deals.
  - panzer_wyrm 9y ago
    That is the best subtle trolling I have seen this month. Well played sir.

xmj 9y ago

Socialism in healthcare brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives.

cmrdporcupine 9y ago
A free market also rations. Just with entirely different acceptance criterion. Criterion which (when applied to health care) happen to not intersect with most mainstream systems of ethics and morality. Constrainted, non-infinite supply, basically infinite demand. What a great business to be in!
- problems 9y ago
  To be fair you can't exactly call the current system in the US free market. There are ridiculous restrictions on hospitals and insurance companies that prevent proper competition from occurring in many cases. While single payer is often a better system, it's not without its problems - in Canada ER wait times are ridiculous, my sister had to wait 10 hours recently and if you want to find a GP? Good luck. Everyone is booked solid. I thought Obamacare seemed like a good compromise to be honest. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's been a miraculous solution. I think some sort of free market solution with a safety net on the low end could do the job, but I don't know what that would look like. And I don't think we've seen any proposals in that direction.
  - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
    I live in Canada. Things vary. For sure triage is in place in ER like anywhere else. But I've sat in many an ER with my kids, my mother in law (cancer), and many friends and myself and honestly I've always felt their scheduling was fair considering the priorities and demand. But right now I can see my family doctor with 1 day notice, most times same day, and they have someone on-call for phone 14 hours a day and on weekends. Mostly I can avoid ER and drop-in clinic visits completely.
logophobia 9y ago
And a free-market healthcare system means letting poor people die, which in my opinion is even worse. There are no good solutions here.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anentropic 9y ago
Except when it doesn't Plus universal access, which is pretty much how you'd judge if a country is civilised or not.
DanBC 9y ago
The US spends more as a percentage of GDP than any other G& nation, but has worse life expectancy rates. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-compare-internationally/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-com... Ignoring insurance spending: the US government spends more on healthcare than the UK government, and gets worse outcomes across many (but not all) measures.
Fraterkes 9y ago
This always seems such a strange view to me, like you are ignoring that the us is both the only rich western country without single payer and also a country with an infamously bad healthcare situation.
- stupidhn 9y ago
  >This always seems such a strange view to me Well as someone from Canada, living in a provincial capital, who can't get a doctor (for years), I'd say I agree with the OP. I guess the family doctor waiting list I've been on for two years and counting is simply a "bogeyman".
  - Kluny 9y ago
    Are you talking about Victoria? Because I hear lots of complaints from people living here that they can't get a GP, waits are awful, etc etc. But I pretty much always get in to see a doctor within 45 minutes if I drop in, and every time I actually try to access healthcare it seems to work much better than my friends led me to believe it would.
    - stupidhn 9y ago
      >Are you talking about Victoria? No, but it's a problem coast to coast, apparently. >every time I actually try to access healthcare it seems to work much better than my friends led me to believe it would. You sound healthy. Not everyone is so lucky.
      - health_in_usa 9y ago
        I'm curious about this - why are other people able to get doctors while you are unable to (asking in utmost earnestness)? Also, it seems that your condition isn't life-threatening (considering you're posting here and all). While the average, generally healthy, person will likely need to wait longer, they at least have access to care in developed countries outside the US. The final point I would add is that private healthcare is still available, even if only available in a different country. I think that's a reasonable trade off- most people can get care readily, while those who need more can pay more to get more timely care.
health_in_usa 9y ago
This is a common argument but basically just a bogeyman. People with disposable income/high healthcare needs aren't dying in countries with single-payer insurance. Indeed, they're able to purchase private healthcare, while the broader population gets better health than the US population. Honestly, it looks like this 'socialism' thing works a lot better for peoples' health than what's happening in the US.
notsofastmister 9y ago
I've lived in multiple European countries and have never seen any of the rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages or others that you list. Treatment I've known people go through include cancer therapy, orthopedic surgery, eye laser treatment, chronic pain management, casts after accidents, and others.
- fetbaffe 9y ago
  Sweden has all of those problems https://www.svt.se/nyheter/akut-brist-pa-vardplatser-i-hela-landet https://www.svt.se/nyheter/akut-brist-pa-vardplatser-i-hela-...
  - stupidhn 9y ago
    >Sweden has all of those problems It seems like healthy people spend a bit of time in wealthy nations with socialized health care and see nothing wrong with the system. Live it. Have friends and family suffer illness or disability and try to find treatment. There is very little preventative care where I'm from because the doctors have no time. It's emergency after emergency. So, sure, in Canada you won't break the bank if you dislocate your shoulder and have to go to the ER. But any special procedures and you'll be waiting years sometimes for an appointment.
    - fetbaffe 9y ago
      Are you saying that Sweden does not have these problems? Based on what? Do you live there? Any facts? US problems in health care are not the same as the Swedish problems. Different problems, different solutions. Disclosure: I live in Sweden and follow the health care debate here.
      - fetbaffe 9y ago
        To dispel the myth about the Swedish "free" health care system, today about 650 000 swedes have private health care insurance, 70% paid by the employer. This is on top on the already public tax funded health care system. So basically Sweden is slowly introducing the US system. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/privat-sjukvardsforsakring-beskattas-fran-nasta-ar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/privat-sjukvardsforsakrin...
pjmorris 9y ago
And capitalism in health care brings 29 million uninsured. Ask them about rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages.
- fetbaffe 9y ago
  Not sure you can blame capitalism here, because capitalism is economic system, not a political system, i.e capitalism and socialism is not it's counterparts because they are different entities, apples & oranges. Health care in US is political regulated system, badly done as well. Yes, you can have capitalism and government funded health care system.
forvelin 9y ago
Please drop your pride for a second and take a look how things proceed in Europe in terms of healthcare. There is no waiting lists or rationing and many countries do well with this setup. It has been years since Soviet Union collapsed, it is amazing to see same boogeyman yet again.
- stupidhn 9y ago
  >There is no waiting lists or rationing and many countries do well with this setup. Look at Canada, where this stuff is happening in spades. I'm living it.
  - pikzen 9y ago
    Do you realize that this is happening in Canada because certain people are pushing for privatized health care, draining more and more resources away from the public health services, causing the service quality to go down? It's a tried and tested technique. Take a well working system which doesn't generate profits, push to reduce costs, entirely destroying the service then point it out and say "See? It doesn't work. Better privatize it!"
    - refurb 9y ago
      Wow! That's a serious stretch. There is almost no private healthcare in Canada right now. Doctors are banned from "straddling the fence". They either have to go 100% public or 100% private. The reason for the waitlists in Canada are complex, but cost control is one of the reasons.
- dagw 9y ago
  Which European country has no waiting lists for non-trivial procedures?
  - panzer_wyrm 9y ago
    How often do you need non trivial procedures? Surgical operations are split into 2 groups - planned and unplanned. In planned enter people that could wait a bit. If there is good medical reason that you cannot wait you get the treatment on the spot. You only have real waiting lists for transplants.
smt88 9y ago
> Socialism in healthcare brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages This isn't always true. The UK is single-payer, and their wait times are lower than in the US[1]. Even if that were true, those things are acceptable on average as long as outcomes improve. Australia, the UK, and France (all single-payer) have longer life expectancy[2] than the US. In fact, the UK is doing better than the US in nearly every health-related metric[3] > and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives. So "better care for people who can pay more" is a better system? That's what we want when dealing with people's lives? If anything should be socialized, it's health care. No one should die because they weren't born with the opportunity to work a high-paying job or accumulate wealth. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/25/gp-appointment-waiting-times-in-us-worse-than-nhs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/25/gp-appointme... 2. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht... 3. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/20...
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  "So "better care for people who can pay more" is a better system?" Don't phrase this as an alternative - those able to pay more can still buy themselves better care, they're being denied nothing except to watch the poor die of illness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_medicine_in_the_UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_medicine_in_the_UK
  - smt88 9y ago
    You're right. A better way to phrase it is this: "Health-care quality in proportion to wealth" -- the poor get worse care because they can't afford to pay for gold-standard care.
    - zip1234 9y ago
      This is OK as long as there is a sufficiently high floor on the quality of service that the poor receive. Someone has to pay for the advanced treatments, drugs, machinery, and training.
fetbaffe 9y ago
Socialism is definitely not the answer, however many European systems are not directly socialism, there are many different ways of solving health care, US system is just too expensive.
Loic 9y ago
Our family live in a socialist country as seen through the US American lens: Germany. Germany is interesting, depending of your annual income and your work contract, you can either go with a private health insurance and a public health insurance. Only about 10% of the population is going with the private system. Once you decided to go private, you cannot go back to the public insurance. At the moment, a lot of people regret their switch to the private system, because with low interest rates, the insurance costs have been increasing drastically. In fact, proponent of a total privatization of the German health insurance system are now backtracking and thinking about the reverse, stopping the private system (but if the interest rates rocket again, I suppose the private system will make money again). For that, Germany is pretty interesting as it allows observation of two parallel systems within the same country with the "best case scenario" for the private system because only rich people and state employees are allowed to go with a fully private health insurance. My personal opinion is that health insurance like education is a basic "right" but this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of one approach or another, just an opinion.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  ...only rich people and state employees are allowed to go with a fully private health insurance. Wow, it seems there may have been an interesting series of political deals that led to these particular eligibility criteria.
sametmax 9y ago
I'm french. This morning my girlfriend was sick. She called her doc, got an appointment for the very afternoon. The visit, buying the med and getting a certificate for 3 days off work took us all in all 2 hours. She paid most of the bills using her health care card, so in total it was less than 50 euros from her pocket. The day off will be paid in full. Tell me again how we suffered from "waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives". Cause right now my life is god damn awesome. It has been for the last 3 decades, including when I got malaria in Africa and the french system refunded me, or when I break my arms multiple times, or got my appendice removed. I always though that the US system was that bad compared to ours from the people POV because french companies paid a lot more. Now I see it's not even the case.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Cause right now my life if god damn awesome. Maybe, but Le Pen got a lot more interest than she should have. If the economy was roaring and France was "awesome" would that happen?
  - pikzen 9y ago
    Are you conflating the economy in general with healthcare simply because you have no argument? Le Pen voters are angry for some part, yes. They're the ones with the fewest resources, yes. And you know what? They still get the same health care as anyone else.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      I'm saying the French people undermine your testimonial better than I can. The typical argument (all over this discussion) for bureaucratic medicine is "it's all over Europe and it's awesome!" But I don't think Europe thinks it has everything figured out. One of the consequences of government-provided services, for example, is that it pits native citizens against 'new' and aspiring citizens on the years that everyone decides life is a zero sum game.
JetSpiegel 9y ago
Waiting lists beat the status quo of "no procedures for you!"
cafebabbe 9y ago
> Socialism in healthcare What you even mean by "socialism in healthcare" ? Is it a trigger-word for Americans so they switch off their brain ? Anyway, in most west EU countries, public-run health care works very well. It's more efficient by a vast margin : no marketing cost, no middle-man overhead, no for-profit requirement. In fact in France we are currently evaluating getting rid of private sector altogether, as recent reports showed it would be much cheaper and better overall.
BrandonM 9y ago
I know plenty of family members in the US who have waited months for health care procedures. Being poor or rural brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives.
rwj 9y ago
People shouldn't confuse single-payer with socialism. In many single-payer systems, the government will put a limit on what they are willing to pay for various services, but those services are provided by private entities.

panzer_wyrm 9y ago

To bring us costs to western europe levels you need to have 1. Slash labor compensation 2. Slash medicine prices. 3. Reduce amenities in hospitals 4. Reduce medical student debt. 5. Reduce equipment cost 6. Reduce somewhat the freedom of patients to choose doctors and doctors to choose patients. 7. Outright kill hospital prices. 8. Reduce malpractice insurance. Reduce malpractice compensation. 9. Forbid direct medicine marketing to consumers and doctors. Any of those is hard on its own. Combined - it is impossible.

rileymat2 9y ago
Why suggest reducing malpractice insurance and reducing malpractice compensation instead of reducing malpractice?
- panzer_wyrm 9y ago
  First because reducing malpractice is a goal that does not depend on the way a system is funded. We should reduce medical errors full stop. The two you mentioned give direct costs increase and indirect in the form of defensive medicine. UnNecessary treatments because the doctor is scared of potential lawsuits could event hurt patients since there is no such thing as procedure without risk or complications.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Considering the plague of lawyers with which USA is burdened, there is no reason to believe that reducing malpractice would reduce malpractice compensation or malpractice insurance.
akvadrako 9y ago
It's only impossible because it's so had to get everybody to agree on a plan. To reduce healthcare costs, the USA really just needs a leader who's good at making deals.
- panzer_wyrm 9y ago
  That is the best subtle trolling I have seen this month. Well played sir.