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- I'm really sorry to hear about the author's father's passing. - While it's heart-warming, it is unrealistic to think that a public program can spend infinite
by mikekij 14y ago
- I'm really sorry to hear about the author's father's passing.
- While it's heart-warming, it is unrealistic to think that a public program can spend infinite amounts of money on citizens who a) have paid "little or no" taxes and b) "throat cancer suffers who quit smoking four years afterwards". The math just doesn't add up.
- The fact that the US has a pseudo market-based healthcare system is what allows drug / device companies to make money on innovations that ultimately save lives in other countries (like the UK) where these drugs / devices may not even break even. If you create a system in the US where it's impossible to make money in healthcare innovation, we'll see far fewer technological developments in healthcare, which will lead to worldwide increases in infant mortality / decreases in life expectancy.
That said, we should have a way in the US to provide basic healthcare for the uninsured. The answer is not, however, a single-payer system.
- daleharvey 14y agoThey dont spend a literal infinite amount, but to provide a basic healthcare to every person in the country the math(s) obviously does add up, because the NHS does it.
- VLM 14y ago"we'll see far fewer technological developments in healthcare, which will lead to worldwide increases in infant mortality / decreases in life expectancy." Confusing more or less a 2nd, 3rd or maybe 4th derivative of a value with the value itself. "unrealistic to think that a public program can spend infinite amounts of money on citizens" I read the article, and they cut him off virtually everything when recovery was deemed impossible. Tapering off the drugs, non-interference directive when he therefore codes... he was taking up a bed, not much else. Not quite the same as euthanasia (although not too far) but hardly an infinite amount of money, either. "have paid "little or no" taxes" In a civilized society, should the police, fire, military, educational, and environmental monitoring organizations cut off poor people as a primary goal, rather than as a scandal when they rarely do it anyway?
- NateDad 14y agoHow can it be unrealistic? Every other modern industrialized nation does it.
- mikekij 14y agoTwo reasons. - The other modernized nations you speak of are all running deficits, with the exception of small countries with tremendous natural resource wealth (e.g. Scandinavia) and Germany (which has a tremendous manufacturing sector that I don't fully understand.) That said, the US also is running huge deficits, but a lot of that is due to a ridiculously disproportionate military budget. - Again, the profitability that comes to drug and device companies from the US market largely subsidizes the cost of these goods in other countries. Cut off the profitability in the US, and the costs for drugs and devices go up in every other market. I would love to see a way for the US to be able to provide full healthcare coverage to all its citizens, but as someone with a graduate degree in healthcare economics who has studied the problem in depth, I just don't see it. That said, we shouldn't be turning away the uninsured that need basic healthcare. We have to figure out a way to provide that coverage in a more efficient way than the ER.
- maethorechannen 14y agoAnyone who is a throat cancer sufferer who has only recently quit smoking has paid quite a bit of tax, at least in the UK.
- mikekij 14y agoTrue. My point, however, was that the author was highlighting the fact that this particular patient did not contribute much to the financial pool from which he was now drawing.