7 ms·

The problem with your Rand-esque proposal that if we all saved and lived below our means would be rolling in it, is that we don't all have the privilege of livi

The problem with your Rand-esque proposal that if we all saved and lived below our means would be rolling in it, is that we don't all have the privilege of living in state or region that provides reasonable healthcare. Any guesses what a family policy with a $10,000 (?!) deductible goes for in Maine? $1,400. Say what? That's if you don't get insurance through your employer, which is becoming more rare everyday as insurance negotiations for employers gets stupid expensive everyday too. That's approaching 30% of my annual salary, and we'd have to pay up to $10,000 before anything kicks in. Oh, and routine medical visits aren't covered either, so that just encourages you to not see a doctor unless you really need to. Who honestly wants to drop $200 annually to have someone with 5 years of med school tell you you're fine, but could lose a little weight. The system is broken. If you're covered by insurance you have no right to speak to any of this. If you live in a state where individual policy pools are cost effective, you have no right to speak to any of this. The state of the matter is that the rest of the world has figured this out. And while there will always be challenges figuring out when $84,000 for open heart surgery on a 90 year old man is warranted, we can do better than right now. TLDR; Health care that's twice as expensive and general health that's not even in the top 25 in the world anymore. And no, people go to Thailand for really expensive experimental surgeries (done by American doctors, granted), these days.

natrius 13y ago
The Affordable Care Act requires routine medical visits to be covered by your insurance provider without a copay. If you aren't seeing a doctor every year, you're throwing away money. http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health-care-reform-and-preventive-care-costs http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health...
- secstate 13y ago
  That's new in the past 45 days. For what it's worth, under the ADA the insurance subsidy I get from taxes is enough that I actually am insured, but it doesn't bring the monthly cost of an insurance plan down any ... just pushes the cost off to taxpayers. The miserable irony of this is that then the government winds up making a deal with FOR PROFIT insurance companies. Companies which would be failing their investors if they weren't wringing every cent out of the policy holders to pad their own pockets and generate wealth off the suffering of others. My personal opinion is that the ACA is a stepping stone to a single payer or something close to it in the USA. Meanwhile it is absolutely the worst of both government spending and private corporations. Now we just have to wait a whole other oscillation of the liberal-conservative pendulum, which tends to take 10-20 years.
  - natrius 13y ago
    Insurance companies generally have to spend 80% of premiums on medical expenses[1]. The profit and marketing expenses aren't that much of your premiums. What you seem to be asking for is price fixing the way much of the rest of the world handles healthcare, which will reduce the incentives to advance medicine. I prefer our current approach, where those who can afford to pay are left to pay as much as they're willing to, which increases the number of smart people who are willing to solve everyone's medical problems. I grew up in Houston, where people from around the world go when they want to be treated for cancer at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It's not cheap, but the best doctors in the world head there because they can make the most money. Single-payer healthcare is worse than the Affordable Care Act. [1] https://www.healthcare.gov/how-does-the-health-care-law-protect-me/#part=10 https://www.healthcare.gov/how-does-the-health-care-law-prot...
    - secstate 13y ago
      But 90% of the world doesn't die from exotic cancers, at least not below the age of 50 (or 60 ... keeps creeping up). The idea that advanced medicine is an justification for for-profit medicine is a straw man argument. The reality is that there are many more nuanced single-payer healthcare systems in the world than the one where the government tells you who gets to live and who gets to die. In the U.K. for example, there are still for-profit health care insurers and if you're wealthy enough you can buy their policy and have quadruple by-pass surgery when your 75. I'm not going to pretend we don't live in a capitalist world and that at some point rich people are going to live better than poor people. That would a fool's dream. But to argue pure Smith-style market economics will help keep people healthy is a joke. Even worse than that, while you laud the MDA Cancer Center in Houston now, wait 20 years and the cost of operating it will have sent it out of the country. In a globalized world you are competing with everyone, and while the USA has been sleeping the rest of the world has been getting very good at what we believe makes us special.
      - natrius 13y ago
        I don't fear the rest of the world getting better than us at medicine. Money motivates most people. The best doctors will go where they can get the most money. That is here. If I had to pick between the UK's system, where price controls help pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, and the Affordable Care Act, where wealthy people pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, I'd choose the Affordable Care Act. Price controls have such a terrible track record that we should prove why healthcare is different from the failures we've seen in housing, food and gas before trying again. Price controls give us less of what we desired so much in the first place.

natrius 13y ago

The Affordable Care Act requires routine medical visits to be covered by your insurance provider without a copay. If you aren't seeing a doctor every year, you're throwing away money. http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health-care-reform-and-preventive-care-costs http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health...

secstate 13y ago
That's new in the past 45 days. For what it's worth, under the ADA the insurance subsidy I get from taxes is enough that I actually am insured, but it doesn't bring the monthly cost of an insurance plan down any ... just pushes the cost off to taxpayers. The miserable irony of this is that then the government winds up making a deal with FOR PROFIT insurance companies. Companies which would be failing their investors if they weren't wringing every cent out of the policy holders to pad their own pockets and generate wealth off the suffering of others. My personal opinion is that the ACA is a stepping stone to a single payer or something close to it in the USA. Meanwhile it is absolutely the worst of both government spending and private corporations. Now we just have to wait a whole other oscillation of the liberal-conservative pendulum, which tends to take 10-20 years.
- natrius 13y ago
  Insurance companies generally have to spend 80% of premiums on medical expenses[1]. The profit and marketing expenses aren't that much of your premiums. What you seem to be asking for is price fixing the way much of the rest of the world handles healthcare, which will reduce the incentives to advance medicine. I prefer our current approach, where those who can afford to pay are left to pay as much as they're willing to, which increases the number of smart people who are willing to solve everyone's medical problems. I grew up in Houston, where people from around the world go when they want to be treated for cancer at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It's not cheap, but the best doctors in the world head there because they can make the most money. Single-payer healthcare is worse than the Affordable Care Act. [1] https://www.healthcare.gov/how-does-the-health-care-law-protect-me/#part=10 https://www.healthcare.gov/how-does-the-health-care-law-prot...
  - secstate 13y ago
    But 90% of the world doesn't die from exotic cancers, at least not below the age of 50 (or 60 ... keeps creeping up). The idea that advanced medicine is an justification for for-profit medicine is a straw man argument. The reality is that there are many more nuanced single-payer healthcare systems in the world than the one where the government tells you who gets to live and who gets to die. In the U.K. for example, there are still for-profit health care insurers and if you're wealthy enough you can buy their policy and have quadruple by-pass surgery when your 75. I'm not going to pretend we don't live in a capitalist world and that at some point rich people are going to live better than poor people. That would a fool's dream. But to argue pure Smith-style market economics will help keep people healthy is a joke. Even worse than that, while you laud the MDA Cancer Center in Houston now, wait 20 years and the cost of operating it will have sent it out of the country. In a globalized world you are competing with everyone, and while the USA has been sleeping the rest of the world has been getting very good at what we believe makes us special.
    - natrius 13y ago
      I don't fear the rest of the world getting better than us at medicine. Money motivates most people. The best doctors will go where they can get the most money. That is here. If I had to pick between the UK's system, where price controls help pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, and the Affordable Care Act, where wealthy people pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, I'd choose the Affordable Care Act. Price controls have such a terrible track record that we should prove why healthcare is different from the failures we've seen in housing, food and gas before trying again. Price controls give us less of what we desired so much in the first place.