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As much as I disagree with the unbridled spending that has been going on in Washington recently (but is just continuing a trend from the past several administra

As much as I disagree with the unbridled spending that has been going on in Washington recently (but is just continuing a trend from the past several administrations), I just don't see any non-selfish reasons why someone would argue against having universal healthcare. I mean, it's the 21st century! We were supposed to have flying cars and such already, but there's still tens of millions of people in our country that can't get treatment for even minor illnesses (which, untreated, can worsen and bring on deadly complications). The only thing that I'm afraid of in this case (other than the cost) is that the system becomes too bureaucratic, where most people continue to use private doctors simply because there's too much "red tape" to get treated in a public facility.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I just don't see any non-selfish reasons why someone would argue against having universal healthcare. How about "my kids can't afford it" Or "increasing demand while keeping supply constant will NOT lower costs" Or "I should have the freedom to come up with a million-dollar-per-ill cure for cancer and not have the government take it" None of these are selfish. I've got others, if you'd like to hear them.
- profquail 17y ago
  I never said the costs would be lower. In fact, the cost issue is the only real argument I see against it. Why not offer incentives (tax breaks, for example) to coerce the system into the right state? For example, if you go to medical school or nursing school and graduate in the top 50% of your class (from any accredited school), you would be automatically reimbursed for the entirety of your tuition by the government. This would create an incentive for more students to become doctors and nurses, which is sorely needed today; at the same time, it reduces the barrier to entry (the cost), creates motivation to do well, and also keeps the price of service (what the doctor charges you) down as well (since they're not having to pay back $200k in student loans). At the same time, the system should require everyone to get certain tests on a regular basis (e.g. a yearly physical). If you don't take care of yourself at some kind of baseline level (the doctor should be able to tell from your charts), then you will be charged a "surplus" fee since you will be requiring more medical care down the road (e.g. heart disease due to lack of exercise). This would motivate people to get in shape, or at least they'd be paying for the extra costs of their own care. So, essentially, it's free as long as you play your own little part in the system. On another note, all the people that I've heard argue against UH have all said that they don't want to pay for someone else's healthcare. While I understand where they're coming from (I hold mostly libertarian political views), you have to remember that the 'healthier' our society becomes (due to UH, or simply lifestyle changes, etc.), the "cost" per person is reduced. This is because healthier people are more able to contribute to society, rather than unhealthy people who must survive on the contributions of others.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Setting aside the bureaucratic monster this would necessitate, it just seems completely unAmerican. How can you square fines for failure to exercise with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness"? And where in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to perform these things? Even if it were a good idea, I can't see where it's legal for them to do so.
    - profquail 17y ago
      You would still be welcome to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness". No one would be forcing you to use said healthcare system, but if healthcare was totally free, what's to stop people from totally trashing their bodies then asking for organ transplants on the public dime? In such a system, checks and balances need to be in place to keep people from 'gaming the system'. IF you wanted to use the public healthcare, then you should be forced to make some compensation back to the public if you are willfully (by using your right to not exercise, or you want to be a smoker, etc.) causing harm to your body which is then causing you need to need extra medical procedures and costing everyone money!
      - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        but if healthcare was totally free, what's to stop people from totally trashing their bodies then asking for organ transplants on the public dime? I guess the government is the entity to stop us. After all, as you point out, once you start using public money to pay for something that makes it everybody's business, right? So now the government is concerned with how I choose to totally trash my body, because it has an impact on public health costs. And what part of this was good, again? Yes, the part where we got free stuff from some magic place. As much as we want!
        profquail 17y ago
        No, you'd always be able to see a private physician if you wanted to pay for their services out of your own pocket. If you can afford that, then feel free to treat your body however you want. If you're going to be costing everyone else money because of how you're living your life, then you can pay the difference between the extra costs of your healthcare and the baseline amount spent on the 'average' person.
- dan_the_welder 17y ago
  So what is it about heath care that precludes economies of scale? Just to run with your nothing is selfish theme which is born of "the fear" whether you are willing to admit it or not. When was the last cure for a significant disease announced as opposed to a 'treatment' which locks you into a life long drug regimen?
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    So what is it about heath care that precludes economies of scale? There is no fixed-cost capital investment that increases health care productivity dramatically. That is to say, the "health care factory" has not been invented yet. A hospital of 100 doctors is only (roughly) 100x as productive as 100 doctors individually (unlike manufacturing, where 100 assembly line workers >> 100 blacksmiths).
dan_the_welder 17y ago
Damn right, where is my flying car! Seriously though, we are getting to a breaking point on several issues of which health care is just one. Vested interests have legislative lock ins that create huge barriers to entry for new players. The avenues for entrepreneurial success get narrower every year. That's not the American Dream, that is a nightmare. Creative destruction is desperately needed.
jerf 17y ago
Nobody worth listening to is saying, "Hey, I don't want that guy to have health insurance! I want that guy to die in pain!" It's just that when you get past the touchy-feely "Nobody should be poor! Everybody should have health care! Why can't we all just get along‽", and down into the real world of economics and finite resources, it's not so easy. It isn't all that hard to create a universal health care system that is worse than the one we have now, and there are all kinds of other issues, too. You might get me to sign up for health-care vouchers provided from the government if you really insist, but all current proposals seem to just beg for further increasing costs as the health care industry is further isolated from pricing signals and beg even harder for regulatory capture within five years by the already-powerful health care lobby. (The idea that the medical lobby will be defanged by centralizing all the power is so absurd I can't believe anybody who can think the words "regulatory capture" can believe it for more than five seconds without bursting out in laughter.)
- profquail 17y ago
  Like I wrote in my reply to "DanielBMarkham" above, I've actually heard people say that they aren't paying for someone else's health care, and that they simply don't care what happens to people without it. That's just a personal anecdote, but I'm sure the people who said that to me aren't the only ones out there. I understand the real-world economics of the problem, but I think the real underlying issue is that many (not all, but a significant) number of Americans have simply become too selfish over the past 100 years or so. Those people simply aren't willing to sacrifice a little bit of their time and money to build a stronger community, because they don't see that they have anything to gain. I also think that however this thing works out, it's going to become such a bureaucratic mess that it really won't be worth anything except to the most desperate people. The worst part is that we'll still spend the money, and it'll all get funneled away into mega-corporations without any real improvement in anyone's standard of living.
  - javanix 17y ago
    Unfortunately, there just isn't anything you or anyone else is going to be able to do to combat people's "selfishness". It may not be the way we want things to happen, but nobody is going to be able to convince every facet of the population to give up portions (however small) of their livelihoods to "build a stronger community" for exactly the reason you mentioned: nobody can see that they have anything to gain.
sp332 17y ago
Here's one: I don't want to watch my friends and family get poorer as they pay for my (potential) future illness.
mattobrien 17y ago
You're afraid health care will become too bureaucratic? Are you familiar with health insurance companies? There's already a bureaucrat between you and your doctor - the fact that he's from the private sector doesn't change that fact. And private sector bureaucrats have an incentive to deny coverage, purge rolls, etc. - it means greater profits. In the last twenty years, health insurance companies have gone from spending 95 cents of every premium dollar on health care to roughly 80 cents today. Where did that extra money go? Greater overhead and profits. Under a universal system, public bureaucrats wouldn't have the same incentives to deny care. Just a friendly reminder that before you start spouting cliches about "bureaucrats ruining things" you should ask whether they already have - just not from the government.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Yes, surely the incentives are different. I don't at all believe that the public-bureaucrat incentives are better. My wife is manager of budget & reimbursement at a hospital, which means that her primary task is working with Medicare and Medicaid officials. I don't think that a day goes by that she's not telling me about some inefficiency in the process. It might be the (literally) reams of paperwork they're required to produce, or unnecessary tests that are necessitated by Medicare rules, or the attitude she gets from the public employees she must talk to. But any time you hear that Medicare is more efficient, remember that because Medicare/Medicaid nearly comprise a monopsony, it's able to push many of its administrative chores onto the healthcare providers.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I just don't see any non-selfish reasons why someone would argue against having universal healthcare. How about "my kids can't afford it" Or "increasing demand while keeping supply constant will NOT lower costs" Or "I should have the freedom to come up with a million-dollar-per-ill cure for cancer and not have the government take it" None of these are selfish. I've got others, if you'd like to hear them.

profquail 17y ago
I never said the costs would be lower. In fact, the cost issue is the only real argument I see against it. Why not offer incentives (tax breaks, for example) to coerce the system into the right state? For example, if you go to medical school or nursing school and graduate in the top 50% of your class (from any accredited school), you would be automatically reimbursed for the entirety of your tuition by the government. This would create an incentive for more students to become doctors and nurses, which is sorely needed today; at the same time, it reduces the barrier to entry (the cost), creates motivation to do well, and also keeps the price of service (what the doctor charges you) down as well (since they're not having to pay back $200k in student loans). At the same time, the system should require everyone to get certain tests on a regular basis (e.g. a yearly physical). If you don't take care of yourself at some kind of baseline level (the doctor should be able to tell from your charts), then you will be charged a "surplus" fee since you will be requiring more medical care down the road (e.g. heart disease due to lack of exercise). This would motivate people to get in shape, or at least they'd be paying for the extra costs of their own care. So, essentially, it's free as long as you play your own little part in the system. On another note, all the people that I've heard argue against UH have all said that they don't want to pay for someone else's healthcare. While I understand where they're coming from (I hold mostly libertarian political views), you have to remember that the 'healthier' our society becomes (due to UH, or simply lifestyle changes, etc.), the "cost" per person is reduced. This is because healthier people are more able to contribute to society, rather than unhealthy people who must survive on the contributions of others.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Setting aside the bureaucratic monster this would necessitate, it just seems completely unAmerican. How can you square fines for failure to exercise with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness"? And where in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to perform these things? Even if it were a good idea, I can't see where it's legal for them to do so.
  - profquail 17y ago
    You would still be welcome to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness". No one would be forcing you to use said healthcare system, but if healthcare was totally free, what's to stop people from totally trashing their bodies then asking for organ transplants on the public dime? In such a system, checks and balances need to be in place to keep people from 'gaming the system'. IF you wanted to use the public healthcare, then you should be forced to make some compensation back to the public if you are willfully (by using your right to not exercise, or you want to be a smoker, etc.) causing harm to your body which is then causing you need to need extra medical procedures and costing everyone money!
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      but if healthcare was totally free, what's to stop people from totally trashing their bodies then asking for organ transplants on the public dime? I guess the government is the entity to stop us. After all, as you point out, once you start using public money to pay for something that makes it everybody's business, right? So now the government is concerned with how I choose to totally trash my body, because it has an impact on public health costs. And what part of this was good, again? Yes, the part where we got free stuff from some magic place. As much as we want!
      - profquail 17y ago
        No, you'd always be able to see a private physician if you wanted to pay for their services out of your own pocket. If you can afford that, then feel free to treat your body however you want. If you're going to be costing everyone else money because of how you're living your life, then you can pay the difference between the extra costs of your healthcare and the baseline amount spent on the 'average' person.
dan_the_welder 17y ago
So what is it about heath care that precludes economies of scale? Just to run with your nothing is selfish theme which is born of "the fear" whether you are willing to admit it or not. When was the last cure for a significant disease announced as opposed to a 'treatment' which locks you into a life long drug regimen?
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  So what is it about heath care that precludes economies of scale? There is no fixed-cost capital investment that increases health care productivity dramatically. That is to say, the "health care factory" has not been invented yet. A hospital of 100 doctors is only (roughly) 100x as productive as 100 doctors individually (unlike manufacturing, where 100 assembly line workers >> 100 blacksmiths).

dan_the_welder 17y ago

Damn right, where is my flying car! Seriously though, we are getting to a breaking point on several issues of which health care is just one. Vested interests have legislative lock ins that create huge barriers to entry for new players. The avenues for entrepreneurial success get narrower every year. That's not the American Dream, that is a nightmare. Creative destruction is desperately needed.

jerf 17y ago

Nobody worth listening to is saying, "Hey, I don't want that guy to have health insurance! I want that guy to die in pain!" It's just that when you get past the touchy-feely "Nobody should be poor! Everybody should have health care! Why can't we all just get along‽", and down into the real world of economics and finite resources, it's not so easy. It isn't all that hard to create a universal health care system that is worse than the one we have now, and there are all kinds of other issues, too. You might get me to sign up for health-care vouchers provided from the government if you really insist, but all current proposals seem to just beg for further increasing costs as the health care industry is further isolated from pricing signals and beg even harder for regulatory capture within five years by the already-powerful health care lobby. (The idea that the medical lobby will be defanged by centralizing all the power is so absurd I can't believe anybody who can think the words "regulatory capture" can believe it for more than five seconds without bursting out in laughter.)

profquail 17y ago
Like I wrote in my reply to "DanielBMarkham" above, I've actually heard people say that they aren't paying for someone else's health care, and that they simply don't care what happens to people without it. That's just a personal anecdote, but I'm sure the people who said that to me aren't the only ones out there. I understand the real-world economics of the problem, but I think the real underlying issue is that many (not all, but a significant) number of Americans have simply become too selfish over the past 100 years or so. Those people simply aren't willing to sacrifice a little bit of their time and money to build a stronger community, because they don't see that they have anything to gain. I also think that however this thing works out, it's going to become such a bureaucratic mess that it really won't be worth anything except to the most desperate people. The worst part is that we'll still spend the money, and it'll all get funneled away into mega-corporations without any real improvement in anyone's standard of living.
- javanix 17y ago
  Unfortunately, there just isn't anything you or anyone else is going to be able to do to combat people's "selfishness". It may not be the way we want things to happen, but nobody is going to be able to convince every facet of the population to give up portions (however small) of their livelihoods to "build a stronger community" for exactly the reason you mentioned: nobody can see that they have anything to gain.

sp332 17y ago

Here's one: I don't want to watch my friends and family get poorer as they pay for my (potential) future illness.

mattobrien 17y ago

You're afraid health care will become too bureaucratic? Are you familiar with health insurance companies? There's already a bureaucrat between you and your doctor - the fact that he's from the private sector doesn't change that fact. And private sector bureaucrats have an incentive to deny coverage, purge rolls, etc. - it means greater profits. In the last twenty years, health insurance companies have gone from spending 95 cents of every premium dollar on health care to roughly 80 cents today. Where did that extra money go? Greater overhead and profits. Under a universal system, public bureaucrats wouldn't have the same incentives to deny care. Just a friendly reminder that before you start spouting cliches about "bureaucrats ruining things" you should ask whether they already have - just not from the government.

CWuestefeld 17y ago
Yes, surely the incentives are different. I don't at all believe that the public-bureaucrat incentives are better. My wife is manager of budget & reimbursement at a hospital, which means that her primary task is working with Medicare and Medicaid officials. I don't think that a day goes by that she's not telling me about some inefficiency in the process. It might be the (literally) reams of paperwork they're required to produce, or unnecessary tests that are necessitated by Medicare rules, or the attitude she gets from the public employees she must talk to. But any time you hear that Medicare is more efficient, remember that because Medicare/Medicaid nearly comprise a monopsony, it's able to push many of its administrative chores onto the healthcare providers.