5 ms·

No you haven't. The ACA is not government run healthcare by a long shot. Medicare and Medicaid tend to be immensely popular.

jki275 8y ago
Not talking about ACA. The ACA has existed for what, about six years? I've been active duty military my entire adult life, over 20 years, the military healthcare system is the ideal system you're advocating for. I'm an expert in how horrible it is.
- noir-york 8y ago
  The VA is not fit for purpose. I don't blame you for thinking that govt. run services suck but frankly how the US treats its veterans (not just medical health but also pensions, etc) is shocking.
- graeme 8y ago
  FWIW, it sounds like veteran's health care in the us is more top down than most "government" health programs in other countries. All the staff are VA employees, right? In Canada, by contrast, the doctors and hospitals tend to be private. The government pays, and sets price schedules, but they don't directly control care. It's obviously a bit more complicated than that, but the public system sounds much less centralized than your VA health system.
- justinclift 8y ago
  > the military healthcare system is the ideal system you're advocating for ... Hmmm, it sounds more like a terrible implementation, whereas some of the other implementations are generally decent?
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    That depends on if the implementation details are country and culture-specific. Knowing what I know of the VA and my former service roommate’s experiences with them, I can’t really blame people for thinking any such system run by our government expanded to more people would never be efficient or better. Something something better the devil you know...
- howard941 8y ago
  Just to be clear are you unhappy with active duty medical service provided by active service members to other active service members? Tri-Care? VA? It sounds like the first
  - jki275 8y ago
    Both are horrible. Medicare and Medicaid are almost as bad from what I've seen.
- ska 8y ago
  You are essentially saying "The US public healthcare system for the military (or veterans?) is terrible". I'm sure most people are more than willing to accept your experience in this. However, the jump from that to asserting that it's the "public" part of that statement that leads to the "terrible" part is a huge one, and frankly not in evidence.
  - toast0 8y ago
    The statement isn't that all public run healthcare systems are terrible. The statement is the United States governments, either federally or as individual states, are likely incapable of creating or running a non-terrible healthcare system. We've already got at least a Medicaid system by state, federal Medicare, and federal VA. Are any of these non-terrible? Is there any realistic reform towards making them non-terrible? Is it realistically feasible to scale any of the non-terrible ones up to service the whole US population? Certainly, it's possible for a government run healthcare system to not be terrible (or at least, mostly not terrible; any healthcare system has to make some hard choices at times, and people don't usually like it when they're the hard choice), and I'm sure you can find examples of that; but it doesn't seem possible with the governments the US has.
    - ska 8y ago
      I think the "political reality" attitude is an interesting one, but can be used as an excuse. I'm not convinced that it isn't possible to scale up to the entire US population in a way that doesn't suck, but you could be right. To work well it would certainly involve systemic change across the healthcare industry, and some current players would be hurt. Perhaps it's not politically feasible in the US, but if so that is a pretty damning indictment of the state of things.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      I don't perceive Medicare as terrible, based on my relatives' experience. And that's the one most likely to be converted into a universal program.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

jki275 8y ago

Not talking about ACA. The ACA has existed for what, about six years? I've been active duty military my entire adult life, over 20 years, the military healthcare system is the ideal system you're advocating for. I'm an expert in how horrible it is.

noir-york 8y ago
The VA is not fit for purpose. I don't blame you for thinking that govt. run services suck but frankly how the US treats its veterans (not just medical health but also pensions, etc) is shocking.
graeme 8y ago
FWIW, it sounds like veteran's health care in the us is more top down than most "government" health programs in other countries. All the staff are VA employees, right? In Canada, by contrast, the doctors and hospitals tend to be private. The government pays, and sets price schedules, but they don't directly control care. It's obviously a bit more complicated than that, but the public system sounds much less centralized than your VA health system.
justinclift 8y ago
> the military healthcare system is the ideal system you're advocating for ... Hmmm, it sounds more like a terrible implementation, whereas some of the other implementations are generally decent?
- Karunamon 8y ago
  That depends on if the implementation details are country and culture-specific. Knowing what I know of the VA and my former service roommate’s experiences with them, I can’t really blame people for thinking any such system run by our government expanded to more people would never be efficient or better. Something something better the devil you know...
howard941 8y ago
Just to be clear are you unhappy with active duty medical service provided by active service members to other active service members? Tri-Care? VA? It sounds like the first
- jki275 8y ago
  Both are horrible. Medicare and Medicaid are almost as bad from what I've seen.
ska 8y ago
You are essentially saying "The US public healthcare system for the military (or veterans?) is terrible". I'm sure most people are more than willing to accept your experience in this. However, the jump from that to asserting that it's the "public" part of that statement that leads to the "terrible" part is a huge one, and frankly not in evidence.
- toast0 8y ago
  The statement isn't that all public run healthcare systems are terrible. The statement is the United States governments, either federally or as individual states, are likely incapable of creating or running a non-terrible healthcare system. We've already got at least a Medicaid system by state, federal Medicare, and federal VA. Are any of these non-terrible? Is there any realistic reform towards making them non-terrible? Is it realistically feasible to scale any of the non-terrible ones up to service the whole US population? Certainly, it's possible for a government run healthcare system to not be terrible (or at least, mostly not terrible; any healthcare system has to make some hard choices at times, and people don't usually like it when they're the hard choice), and I'm sure you can find examples of that; but it doesn't seem possible with the governments the US has.
  - ska 8y ago
    I think the "political reality" attitude is an interesting one, but can be used as an excuse. I'm not convinced that it isn't possible to scale up to the entire US population in a way that doesn't suck, but you could be right. To work well it would certainly involve systemic change across the healthcare industry, and some current players would be hurt. Perhaps it's not politically feasible in the US, but if so that is a pretty damning indictment of the state of things.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    I don't perceive Medicare as terrible, based on my relatives' experience. And that's the one most likely to be converted into a universal program.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]