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>The world is not static. Today's crap healthcare and over the counter meds are impossible, miraculous health care if you compare with what people experienced h

by foldr 7y ago

>The world is not static. Today's crap healthcare and over the counter meds are impossible, miraculous health care if you compare with what people experienced historically. Isn't this just a weaselly way of saying that you're perfectly fine with poor people getting much worse care than rich people? What does it matter that they're getting better care than rich people did 100 years ago? >Ok, I made that up, but hopefully you get the point that greater things are coming than the things we have now. I'm sure that is a great comfort to uninsured patients with stage 3 cancer! We could just give them the care they need right now, but I guess it's better to wait some indeterminate amount of time till the market brings the cost of chemotherapy down to $100/month. >My position is: the market left to do its thing produces goods/services that are cheap and plentiful. Yours is, I think: the market has no soul and there is corporate greed/corruption and the market will always have losers, so we need to intercede and level the playing field for people. Please correct me if I got you wrong. As far as compromise is concerned, I don't really see any room for it here. There are many ways to provide universal health coverage. I have not insisted on a single payer system at any point in this discussion. However, it seems that what you want to compromise on is not the means of delivery, but the universality itself. In all of your long and irrelevant discourse on various economic points, I don't detect any concrete statement of what it is about the current system in the US you don't like, and how you'd actually propose to change it. So it seems to me that you de facto support the current system.

ryacko 7y ago
No economic system has abolished status or privileges. Not even Communism. To fight status itself is to fight human nature. People will always try to obtain benefits and pass them down to their children. 200 years ago, all medicine was hospice care. Allocating resources to an industry for which there is infinite demand for - staying alive - will be difficult.
- foldr 7y ago
  >Allocating resources to an industry for which there is infinite demand for - staying alive - will be difficult. Will it? The NHS does an ok job. Not perfect by any means, but much better than the US. I don't demand perfection, just something significantly better than a situation where 15% of the population are uninsured. Do you think that is so terribly difficult?
EdSharkey 7y ago
> Isn't this just a weaselly way of saying that you're perfectly fine with poor people getting much worse care than rich people? What does it matter that they're getting better care than rich people did 100 years ago? Why do you want to fight, friend? Maybe you perceive moral superiority such that it's easier to tear down than cooperate. Like I said before, that's a recipe for disappointment. Improvements in health care matters because that's a trend that is apparently still continuing. What am I missing? And I'm not fine with cancer, another insult! Don't you get me yet, my friend? I do know we're going to definitively cure cancer soon such that the treatment doesn't break the bank as it does today. Until that happens, let's work to bring down the costs AND help out people who can't afford what services are on offer today. Why not both? > what it is about the current system in the US you don't like I don't like how the health care insurance covers everything. The cheap stuff should be out of pocket so that individuals shop on price for those services and we build a competitive marketplace on the simple stuff. I want up-front pricing for services in hospitals, and if I am of sound mind, I must opt into services before they are delivered. Finding out what services cost after I get them is one of the scammiest features of the current system. I don't like how drug prices are artificially inflated in this country by Medicare and Washington cronies. If I were a dictator, I'd mandate everyone who takes a salary must save some percentage (6-8%) of every paycheck in a personal medical savings account the way that Singapore does. If you get health services, you have to pay the full freight for the services out of your account, encouraging market forces. When that account runs out, you're screwed. It's not taxed, and you can leave your account to your heirs. You can also buy catastrophic health insurance so you're not screwed in the event of a big event. The government offers low-income people additional catastrophic health insurance options and charities help pick up the rest of the slack. We can't force that kind of mandatory savings in the US, it's unconstitutional. But, if we could go the mandatory MSA + catestrophic health insurance route, we would maximize market forces and yield results close to universal coverage that results-wise goes far beyond anything you can propose. See? I've thought all about it. I could just as easily say, "you have no realistic plans for controlling costs while delivering high quality service in abundance." But I suspect the life and death aspect of health care is an overriding priority for you, and delving into cost/waste/fraud/abuse is a non-starter. I believe that access to health-care in name only (a.k.a. government-induced rationing) is no health-care at all, though. Affordable, effective, abundant: pick 3. So, no more insulting my intelligence, and please assume good faith, my friend!

by foldr 7y ago

ryacko 7y ago

No economic system has abolished status or privileges. Not even Communism. To fight status itself is to fight human nature. People will always try to obtain benefits and pass them down to their children. 200 years ago, all medicine was hospice care. Allocating resources to an industry for which there is infinite demand for - staying alive - will be difficult.

foldr 7y ago
>Allocating resources to an industry for which there is infinite demand for - staying alive - will be difficult. Will it? The NHS does an ok job. Not perfect by any means, but much better than the US. I don't demand perfection, just something significantly better than a situation where 15% of the population are uninsured. Do you think that is so terribly difficult?

EdSharkey 7y ago

> Isn't this just a weaselly way of saying that you're perfectly fine with poor people getting much worse care than rich people? What does it matter that they're getting better care than rich people did 100 years ago? Why do you want to fight, friend? Maybe you perceive moral superiority such that it's easier to tear down than cooperate. Like I said before, that's a recipe for disappointment. Improvements in health care matters because that's a trend that is apparently still continuing. What am I missing? And I'm not fine with cancer, another insult! Don't you get me yet, my friend? I do know we're going to definitively cure cancer soon such that the treatment doesn't break the bank as it does today. Until that happens, let's work to bring down the costs AND help out people who can't afford what services are on offer today. Why not both? > what it is about the current system in the US you don't like I don't like how the health care insurance covers everything. The cheap stuff should be out of pocket so that individuals shop on price for those services and we build a competitive marketplace on the simple stuff. I want up-front pricing for services in hospitals, and if I am of sound mind, I must opt into services before they are delivered. Finding out what services cost after I get them is one of the scammiest features of the current system. I don't like how drug prices are artificially inflated in this country by Medicare and Washington cronies. If I were a dictator, I'd mandate everyone who takes a salary must save some percentage (6-8%) of every paycheck in a personal medical savings account the way that Singapore does. If you get health services, you have to pay the full freight for the services out of your account, encouraging market forces. When that account runs out, you're screwed. It's not taxed, and you can leave your account to your heirs. You can also buy catastrophic health insurance so you're not screwed in the event of a big event. The government offers low-income people additional catastrophic health insurance options and charities help pick up the rest of the slack. We can't force that kind of mandatory savings in the US, it's unconstitutional. But, if we could go the mandatory MSA + catestrophic health insurance route, we would maximize market forces and yield results close to universal coverage that results-wise goes far beyond anything you can propose. See? I've thought all about it. I could just as easily say, "you have no realistic plans for controlling costs while delivering high quality service in abundance." But I suspect the life and death aspect of health care is an overriding priority for you, and delving into cost/waste/fraud/abuse is a non-starter. I believe that access to health-care in name only (a.k.a. government-induced rationing) is no health-care at all, though. Affordable, effective, abundant: pick 3. So, no more insulting my intelligence, and please assume good faith, my friend!