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Healthcare is a scarce resource. You can hardly legislate it into existence. All "universal" healthcare does is trade price for waiting in line.

by aiscott 15y ago

yequalsx 15y ago
Healthcare is a scarce resource but what you say isn't all that universal healthcare provides. All healthcare systems must ration care. The goal is to ration care in the most ethical/moral way. The present system in the U.S. rationalizes care in a more unethical way that Finland and other similar healthcare systems.
wisty 15y ago
If healthcare is an inelastic resource, the private sector won't make any more if you throw more money at it, and will just re-allocate it to those who can pay the most.
- spindritf 15y ago
  Scarce doesn't mean inelastic and health care -- especially basic one including antibiotics, vaccines, etc. -- is not inelastic, you can get more, as much as you like, really, if you divert resources from other pursuits.
  - aiscott 15y ago
    Doctors are what I had in mind.
rayiner 15y ago
This sort of hyper-simplistic modeling of real world problems is a pretty common trait among real academics, not just HN posters. In my own field of interest (spectrum management) the papers written by ostensibly reputable people are shockingly bad in their reductionist thinking and plain glossing-over of important caveats and assumptions in the applied theories.
asmithmd1 15y ago
Really? My town legislated a fire department into existence. Now we have "universal" fire protection for the town with no waiting.
- pyre 15y ago
  You and your socialist agenda is destroying this country! Take your 'universal fire protection' and go back to the Soviet Union! </sarcasm>
derleth 15y ago
The only way in which you're correct is that the supply of skilled practitioners (doctors, nurses, etc.) may well be inelastic, in that only so many of them will be born in a given timeframe and it requires a certain length of time to take a potentially good practitioner all the way up to actually being a good practitioner.
jrmg 15y ago
As someone form a country with a working, good, universal health care system, the notion that many Americans have that it somehow can't work in reality is very puzzling to me. How can that be true when it plainly does work in many places? The argument that a private insurance based system could be better, fairer, or more efficient can be made (although not if you hold up the current US system as a positive example...), but any argument that it's the only thing that will work is frankly ludicrous.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  Define "does work". Healthcare in the US, even in its incredibly broken state, still "does work". We can compare anecdotes all day long, but that tells us nothing, anecdotes are not data.
  - jrmg 15y ago
    I believe it's generally known to be true that health care in the UK, where I live now (I have also lived in the USA in the past), whether measured by % of GDP or by monetary cost, is much cheaper per capita than health care in the USA[1]. Life expectancy, probably a good measure of the efficacy of a health care system, is very close, perhaps with the UK having a small lead, if anything[2]. If we were to allow anecdotes, I'd also say (and I find this to be a good thing) that people in the UK don't avoid going to the dentist or doctor because it's too expensive. I'm sure that there must be studies that show this to be true. Even if we're not allowing the anecdotal argument, however, if you're prepared to say that the system in the USA 'does work', you're surely prepared to say that the British system also works? Personally, I have a hard time not believing that, since it seems to produce comparable, if not better outcomes, for less cost, it's the better of the two systems. Note that I'm /not/ arguing at all that a private health insurance system could not be devised that also worked as well - perhaps better. I'm also not arguing that any public system will be perfect. To argue that a public system /can't work/ though is, as I said, ludicrous. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=health+care+cost+per+capita+USA+vs+UK http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=health+care+cost+per+ca... [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+USA+vs+UK http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+USA+vs+...

Healthcare is a scarce resource. You can hardly legislate it into existence. All "universal" healthcare does is trade price for waiting in line.

by aiscott 15y ago

Healthcare is a scarce resource. You can hardly legislate it into existence. All "universal" healthcare does is trade price for waiting in line.

yequalsx 15y ago

Healthcare is a scarce resource but what you say isn't all that universal healthcare provides. All healthcare systems must ration care. The goal is to ration care in the most ethical/moral way. The present system in the U.S. rationalizes care in a more unethical way that Finland and other similar healthcare systems.

wisty 15y ago

If healthcare is an inelastic resource, the private sector won't make any more if you throw more money at it, and will just re-allocate it to those who can pay the most.

spindritf 15y ago
Scarce doesn't mean inelastic and health care -- especially basic one including antibiotics, vaccines, etc. -- is not inelastic, you can get more, as much as you like, really, if you divert resources from other pursuits.
- aiscott 15y ago
  Doctors are what I had in mind.

rayiner 15y ago

This sort of hyper-simplistic modeling of real world problems is a pretty common trait among real academics, not just HN posters. In my own field of interest (spectrum management) the papers written by ostensibly reputable people are shockingly bad in their reductionist thinking and plain glossing-over of important caveats and assumptions in the applied theories.

asmithmd1 15y ago

Really? My town legislated a fire department into existence. Now we have "universal" fire protection for the town with no waiting.

pyre 15y ago
You and your socialist agenda is destroying this country! Take your 'universal fire protection' and go back to the Soviet Union! </sarcasm>

derleth 15y ago

The only way in which you're correct is that the supply of skilled practitioners (doctors, nurses, etc.) may well be inelastic, in that only so many of them will be born in a given timeframe and it requires a certain length of time to take a potentially good practitioner all the way up to actually being a good practitioner.

jrmg 15y ago

As someone form a country with a working, good, universal health care system, the notion that many Americans have that it somehow can't work in reality is very puzzling to me. How can that be true when it plainly does work in many places? The argument that a private insurance based system could be better, fairer, or more efficient can be made (although not if you hold up the current US system as a positive example...), but any argument that it's the only thing that will work is frankly ludicrous.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Define "does work". Healthcare in the US, even in its incredibly broken state, still "does work". We can compare anecdotes all day long, but that tells us nothing, anecdotes are not data.
- jrmg 15y ago
  I believe it's generally known to be true that health care in the UK, where I live now (I have also lived in the USA in the past), whether measured by % of GDP or by monetary cost, is much cheaper per capita than health care in the USA[1]. Life expectancy, probably a good measure of the efficacy of a health care system, is very close, perhaps with the UK having a small lead, if anything[2]. If we were to allow anecdotes, I'd also say (and I find this to be a good thing) that people in the UK don't avoid going to the dentist or doctor because it's too expensive. I'm sure that there must be studies that show this to be true. Even if we're not allowing the anecdotal argument, however, if you're prepared to say that the system in the USA 'does work', you're surely prepared to say that the British system also works? Personally, I have a hard time not believing that, since it seems to produce comparable, if not better outcomes, for less cost, it's the better of the two systems. Note that I'm /not/ arguing at all that a private health insurance system could not be devised that also worked as well - perhaps better. I'm also not arguing that any public system will be perfect. To argue that a public system /can't work/ though is, as I said, ludicrous. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=health+care+cost+per+capita+USA+vs+UK http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=health+care+cost+per+ca... [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+USA+vs+UK http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+USA+vs+...