There are many of you here at ProgressiveU that feel that heath care in the United States should be a privilege, and not a right. I'm here to tell you exactly why that reasoning should never be considered.
I've been planning this blog for some time now, because this is a topic that I feel rather strongly about. However, today I've seen a blog that reasons health care should not be a right, and instead of writing up a very long winded response to that blog, I'm writing it here. You can find that blog here.
The system we have in the United States is very, very flawed. Everyone should know this by now. With some 40+ million people uninsured, and even more under-insured, something needs to be done to give these people the health that they deserve.
Let's start with the biggest reason people oppose universal coverage: Personal Responsibility. Meaning everyone is responsible for themselves and should not be responsible for anyone else. This is a principle that even ProgressiveU loves... it's one of the progressive principles you can choose when you write up your blog. But guess what? It doesn't work when it comes to health care.
Why? Well, let's start off with the basic principle of insurance companies: You pay a premium every month, whether it be out of your paycheck directly or through some other means. That goes into some pool, and the insurance companies negotiate rates with hospitals and doctors and whatnot in order to get you a cheaper price. They then pay for at least a portion of that price out of that big pool of money. The objective is, of course, to make you pay more than you require spent, so that they can make a profit.
Now, because you are getting a cheaper rate through that insurance companies, hospitals and doctors have to increase their charges for those that don't have insurance, in order to either break even or make a profit themselves. So, every single one of you that has insurance is forcing those 40+ million people without insurance to pay more. Personal Responsibility? I think not....
The second problem with this is public health. If it is up to the individual to find insurance, and the insurance that they can afford is inadequate (say huge deductibles and out-of-pocket fees that they can't afford), they will avoid going to the doctor when they're sick. The problem then gets worse and worse and worse until you have ERs filled with people that SHOULD HAVE been seen 10 days ago for that minor cough that has now developed into something much more serious, and likely contagious. So first, you're paying for that ER bill, whether through increased premiums or TAXES... so much for personal responsibility. Then, that person cannot afford to stop working to stay home and get better. If their disease is contagious, then that's increasing the risk that other people will get sick. Just think about the TB scares this summer. So, by refusing to allow that person adequate health coverage, you are making it more likely that people will get sick, and you are paying MORE than you would if the person could afford to go to the doctor in the first place.
I don't want this blog to get too incredibly long, so I'll just pick a few other choice arguments and save the rest for another time.
Americans run on a capitalistic system, and that's the system we should stick to when it comes to health care.
Supply and demand is a terrible idea for something that everyone NEEDS. Demand is always going to be high, and that creates a few choice insurance companies that can pretty much charge whatever they want. Sure, that's great for people that make large amounts of money, but what about those that don't? They're left without any coverage, which means more costs for the rest of us.
If we had universal coverage, we wouldn't have any choice anymore.
Are you KIDDING me? You'd have MORE choice. Insurance companies have contracts with physicians and hospitals and other health services. Meaning that once you have an insurance company, you have to choose from THEIR providers. If you don't, you have to pay more, because the insurance company hasn't negotiated a rate with them. In some cases, the insurance companies don't have ANY preferred providers in an area. What are you paying for if you don't get those reduced rates anyway? By making a system where there is a single payer, you can find a physician that works for you. If you don't like the physician, you can find another one, and still get the same coverage. The result is that bad physicians don't get patients and good ones do.
Our government is inefficient, and would totally ruin a single payer system.
Well, let's look at some costs, shall we? The United States spends $4600 roughly, per year per person on health care. This number is expected to jump to $9200 by 2011. (1) Medicare, on the other hand, a GOVERNMENT AGENCY, spends about half of that. This largely due to the fact that everyone 65 and over is covered, and so there are fewer administration costs. Countries with universal health care, by the way, spend about $2000 per person on health care for their citizens.
America may have the best technology in the world when it comes to health care, but it most certainly does NOT have the best system. When people with debilitating diseases are refused any relief that insurance could do, and people go bankrupt from ACCIDENTS, there is something seriously wrong. And that's not even taking into account the more than 40 million people with no or inadequate coverage. I know the nurse that works in the doctor's office I work at cannot afford health care for her and her son. There's something seriously wrong with that.
1. Lebow, Robert H. Health Care Meltdown. 2003, p. 156.
First we'll look at the 40+ million number. The number being thrown around is 47 million. That number is said to include illegal immigrants (20 Million), college aged students and elderly who are otherwise covered or choose to not to have health insurance (15 million)
So, we're left with a vague number ranging from 10 to 18 million people, or approximately 4 to 6% of the American Population.
That really isn't that large of a number considering the over 240 million legal immigrants and natural born citizens (some reports say as high as 290 million)
The numbers game they play tries to make it look like an epidemic, but it really isn't. They also try to suggest that the uninsured are unable to get healthcare, which is also not true. There are many free clinics and hospital emergency rooms which offer care regardless of ability to pay, by law (or by design in the case of free clinics)
As I mentioned on a few threads, you can find insurance on your own, fairly inexpensive. For the cost of a few family trips to McDonalds, you can have health insurance from reputable health insurance companies. I, myself, got a quote for around 50 bucks a month. I've heard radio advertisements for around 32 or 26 bucks a month. I pay more than that for martial arts training. If I had to choose between eating out a few times a month or health insurance, I choose health insurance. I would suggest that many, if nor most, of the 'uninsured' could make room in their budgets, replacing 'wants' with 'needs' like insurance... especially if they have children.
As far as choice, have you looked at the universal healthcare model in other countries? Try getting an MRI or getting heart surgery. Canadian and English models show people waiting in line and dying before they get their shot at surgery, and MANY more being deemed too unhealthy to survive, since their health has deteriorated since they were put on the waiting list. (they are then sentenced to die)
Also, if I have a right to healthcare, then I also have the right to NOT get healthcare. Under universal healthcare, I pay for it whether I want to or not. With the current system, I can choose to not have insurance and bankroll my own medical. Some people do.
Medicare and Medicaid are failures. Have you looked at the care system they get? They don't cost much, but even if it WERE free it wouldn't be worth the price paid.
Your assumption, as you state, is that people with debilitating diseases are 'refused relief' . . . this is simply not true. If you want to talk about refused relief, look at examples of people waiting in line for weeks and sometimes months for MRIs or CAT scans to determine if they have cancer.... or need heart surgery.... or have damaged their knee or elbow....
No, socialized medicine (or universial healthcare, as the left wants to call it now), is nothing more than the federal government decideing that it knows how to use your money and my money better than we do.
You seem like an otherwise bright individual... if you had received an A in a class (having studied and worked your butt off, skipping out on dates and parties), how would you feel if the teacher gave you a C instead, because some other student who didn't study or do homework, spending the semister drunk and partying, was getting an F and the teacher thought that it should be 'more fair' . . . would that be fair?
Why then do you want to force me to pay for your health insurance via the government? We live in a free and open society. Start up your own charity insurance company to give health insurance to the poor. I'm sure you can find many donors.
Why do you want to be charitable with my money? What's wrong with being charitable with your own?
I'm only going to talk about one thing, and that's the prices you quote about affordable health care.
You are 100% correct about the fact that anyone can get a cheap coverage. Hell, I can get one right now for about $50 a month...
Insurance Companies deny you everything. And I am NOT being dramatic. You're essentially paying a premium for nothing, because the most you can ever get is a check-up, and that's a story in itself actually looking for a physician that will agree to your insurance. I know. I've tried.
PS--I agree with this: "The numbers game they play tries to make it look like an epidemic, but it really isn't. "
People are starting to call it an epidemic because now it's effecting some of the middle class. Nothing is ever an epidemic until middle class people start feeling the strain too, and believe me they are.
I've never been anything except upper-lower class to lower-middle class. Ever.
I've never had problems with healthcare. Now.... I've had to turn down job offers because they didn't come with insurance... and I"ve had to work some jobs I didn't like, but they provided healthcare.
That's called sacrifice. If a job market or career doesn't grant healthcare and you have no means to get it, time for a change.
edit: when I was a kid, our family was even on welfare... my dad had to commute a few hours to a job, but it paid health insurance.
You've told me about your job opportunities before, and that really sucks that you could have your dream job and had to turn it down....you're of the belief that people need to get their own shit done and I agree 100% with that...I'm in college right now because I plan on doing the same thing....but I still agree with universal health coverage. For citizens. So I actually agree wtih a nationwide health care plan.
But then again, it might suck when I'm making $150,000 a year in private practice as a psychologist....I was making $6 an hour at a summer job and hated the fact that my weekly paychecks had $8 taken out in taxes...lol.
to paraphrase Dave Ramsey (an EXCELLENT financial talk show host), If you live like no one else would not, you can live like no one else can later.
I don't sacrifice out of some desire to keep myself oppressed, I sacrifice now to provide for myself as an independent and mature individual, working hard now so that later in life I don't have to work as a greeter at Walmart and eat alpo.
do you have a family yet? or are you just maintaining?
I'm shocked that no one has written anything yet. Well, I can't really understand why people would object to having universal health care. For crying out loud, It's such a beautiful idea to actually care for the people of this country. The citizens who can't afford to pay for medical care are still people and need to be treated just as urgently as higher classes. The aforementioned arguments against it sound so dumb, too. I guess some people love being ripped off by money hungry companies who don't generally care about us.
We who are against socialized healthcare have no problem with helping the poor.
we believe in charity and, in fact, conservative states donate more to charity than liberal states.
We don't believe in the government taking my money and deciding what to do with it.
I think health insurance for the poor is a GREAT idea, and think that all of those who support universal healthcare should band together and start a charity to provide health insurance for the poor. Make your own health insurance company that caters to the poor, making them pay as they are financially able.
If your first thought is "But that won't work because it is too expensive" . . .. then you just realized why the GOVERNMENT taking the place of that charity won't work either.
I would wholly support (and likely even donate to) such a charity.
but don't expect the government to make me pay for your health insurance. That isn't the job of the government, certainly not the federal government.
"we believe in charity and, in fact, conservative states donate more to charity than liberal states."
I saw that in the news a while ago and I almost shi* my pants I was so surprised and pissed. Ahhh conservatives. You have to love to hate them.
First, the link to my blog that the original poster is responding to is:
http://www.progressiveu.org/102850-universal-healthcare-is-a-sham#commen...
Secondly, read my blog...and the comments... and the following links and if you still have a response, go for it.
Why socialized health care is inferior:
http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#britain
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/canadas_universal_health_car...
http://www.quazen.com/News/Current-Events/Universal-Health-Care-Cheap-Bu...
Examples of Canadians who came to the US for the better health care:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/canadas_universal_health_car...
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070914/belinda_Str...
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html
I still feel very passionately about this subject, so I'm up for more debating if necessary to prove that a UHC system is completely ridiculous and would only hurt the 96% that DO have health insurance.
Kate
I linked to your blog in my post. I just don't put the address, I put them as links in words.
~C
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The link doesn't work... sometimes that happens to me too. Thanks for trying though. : )
Thanks for telling me... This is the first time I've written up a post without using the rich text editor, and I forgot to put in a quotation mark in the HTML. Oops :-$ Should be fixed now.
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Perfect... thanks for making the effort.
I am really glad that we can have this lively discussion, and not be irate. It's great that we can both be so devoted to this cause, but admit we have different ways of reaching the same goal.
: )
The US Census Bureau reports 1/3 of Americans had no healthcare for all or part of last year:
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070921/A_BIZ/70921...
We also don't have the best medical care with the second worst infant mortality rate in the free world and one of the highest obesity rates, whereas all countries with free healthcare in the free world ranks higher:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/12sun1.html?pagewanted=all
We have high obesity rates because people choose not to take care of themselves, NOT because of our medical care.
I'd like to point out that the NY Times is a biased news source, and that this article was published in the opinion section. The life expectancy is misleading, as previously discussed in this thread or the other one (these are getting confusing), and the WHO is ranked vs measurements that mostly have to do with things like, "fairness", "equity", "access" and "healthy lives". These are hardly quantifiable, and most are going to look better under a universal health care system, but won't necessarily BE better.
Supposedly American doctors kill more patients... that's misleading because it is based on the fact that we have more frivolous malpractice lawsuits. Our infant morality rate could be high because we have so many people who can afford IVF, which results in multiple children and premature births. I'd have to look into this further.
Note the US ranked highest in quality care. Also the best survival rate for cancers. And that 75% of Americans in the Gallup polls said their care was excellent or good. We also have the "top-of-the-line" care no one else can compete with.
My work here is done... thanks for the link.
How is your work done? You may not realize it, but the reason we have such good care is because we are the only country in the free world that doesn't offer free health care. We literally have to make it completely unaffordable to at least 100 million Americans in order for our health care system to work as well as it can. People with the most basic health insurance sometimes won't opt for cancer treatment because they simply cannot afford it.
Please give me the link to where it says that the US has the best survival rate for cancers, because last I heard, Norway, a country with free health care, tops the list of suvival rates and quality of life on all measures in the last world survey.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070921/A_BIZ/70921...
If more people could afford it, our current system of health care would be far less responsive, but to me, that's okay. If you care about people, you need to make sure they work.
100 million Americans?
Do you not understand that the US Census is more legitimate than some organization that questions a small portion of people and then turns that into a statistic? Have you ever conducted a survey? Do you know how they work? Stop linking me to that stupid 1 in 3 article... a Families USA survey is NOT THE SAME as the US Census... not even close.
I found the cancer information the NY Times article you gave me. Everything from that last post came from the NY Times article you gave me.
Like I said, I don't mind paying higher premiums for better health care. If you don't like it, move to a socialist country. The US was built on a democratic system... and I see no reason to change that.
The US Census puts on its webpage people who have never had health insurance in all of 2006, about 16% of the population. However, they also have statistics for people who did without insurance for part of 2006 either because they could not afford it at some point, or they temporarily lost a job, some 15% of the population. I add both of these up to get my numbers of the people without insurance, and it is a true statement.
And actually, the US is the only democratic country in the industrialized Western and Asian world that does not have universal healthcare. The only comparisons to a democracy that does not have universal healthcare you can really make is to desperately poor African countries. Incidently, ALL western countries with universal healthcare have longer average lifespans than we do.
.16 * 300 million does not equal 100 million. It equals approximately 48 million... one of the original numbers we discussed.
Stop throwing numbers out that are unfounded, and clouding the argument.
Universal health care is one step towards socialized government, and communism. It's not democratic, you don't get to choose provider, and it gives the government complete control over your money and your coverage. The countries that have socialized health care use technology and drugs developed by US companies, funded by our private health care system. That's the bottom line.
Actually, a number of drugs in the EU were developed there, and were not approved by the FDA to be sold here. A few of the popular drugs here were developed there as well. The US does not have a monopoly on medical research.
~C
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The US Census report does state that 1 in 3 did without insurance at some point in 2006. Again, this is not to say that 1 in 3 had no insurance at all during 2006, this is to say that 1 in 3 had no insurance at any one point during the year. 1 in 9 had no insurance at all. These are NOT unfounded numbers.
And about other nations using the technology that we develop -- this is one reason why our healthcare is so screwed up. In order to recoup their "losses" in other countries with universal healthcare, they charge Americans much, much more. But there absolutely is no reason why a particular anti-viral or anti-cancer drug would cost a thousand per dose. Multinational corporations do not need to be this greedy.
If we had universal healthcare, it would prevent drug companies, health care providers, and anyone else in the health care industry from overcharging Americans much more than similar health care drugs and procedures anywhere else in the world. And the health care industry would absolutely still survive and thrive, just like any other multinational corporation.
Take McDonald's for example. They charge the same general prices everywhere in the world, and they are a top 10 multinational.
"96% that DO have health insurance."
If this is true then why are we even talking about this?
I mistyped there... 96% of people have ACCESS to health insurance. Only approximately 86.5% of the people in this country actually have it.
We are discussing this issue because we care about the 6% of people who don't have health insurance, and aren't eligible for it, or have sub-par health insurance.
And because I don't want my health insurance taken over by the government, which is the proposed plan by ignorant, selfish people like Hillary Clinton who is trying to collect "compassion" votes from this issue rather than logically solving the problem.
I'm sincerely trying to figure out why she's so passionate about this topic; I think it might be because she actually cares(?). What I mean is that she has her money, and her life, but she's been fighting for this for more than ten years...I wonder why?
I think that Hillary Clinton is a person that does honestly care about the people who are in need of health care, and the children of this country. But I also think that she has a habit of going about "helping them" the wrong way, and she also uses them to get votes.
Clinton has been an advocate for these issues since before she married bill... so that makes more than three decades.
Didn't her husband hold the white house for eight years, AND put her in charge of getting this done?
She didn't do it when it could be her primary focus, If she is the President there will be a lot more conflicting demands on her time. I would doubt her desire and her ability to solve the problem.
A fact is always better than an ideal
I don't really like her, and don't really want to defend her... but I was trying to be open-minded. I know her involvement in these issues began after law school. She worked with groups, and even started one called the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. It's on her website if anyone cares to read it.
We discuss the issue because, despite the anti-american and liberal forces that try to paint us as evil tyrants, we care so much for the poor that many in our country are willing to give healthcare over to the government based on the (incorrect) idea that if we just give enough money through taxes, we can provide for the poorest in the country.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in practice, but if you try to resist universal healthcare, you're written off as someone who doesn't care about the poor and likes to watch people die.
I oppose socialized health care for more reasons then one.
First off, look at the examples in the rest of the world of unversal health care. Canada, our own neighbor, has people paying out of pocket to come to the US for very routine procedures because Canada's hospitals are so backlogged and poorly run.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Z051907A=universal_health_care_universally...
Secondly, Socialized medicine eliminates the need for competition amongst physicians to provide the best care possible. Medical care in the United States would deteriorate quickly.
http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#canada
Thirdly, I almost never support tax increases. It's almost unarguable that an universal health care system would require some sort of funding and raising taxes is Congress's favorite way of paying for things. Beyond that, people who don't need healthcare (mostly minors who are covered under their parent's plans and college students who are usually covered until they graduate) would be forced to pay a tax for a service they don't currently need.
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/bamers
I want to talk to a couple of Canadian friends of mine before I deal with their system, so don't bash me for ignoring that right now.
As far as eliminating the need to provide the best care... I disagree with that. I think a one-payer system (keeping the service itself private, but the funding public) will increase competition between doctors. You could go to whatever physician or hospital that you wanted, instead of being required to go to physicians or hospitals under contract with your insurance company. If you didn't like the physician you went to, you could go to another one.
You raise a good point with taxes on people that are covered through other means. I don't have any statistics for this, so I'm going on ideas, rather than facts. If their parents no longer had to pay out of their paycheck for health expenses (through employer given insurance), they would have more money in their pocket. A small tax increase would be offset by that. And those college students are already paying things like the medicare tax and other taxes that go towards government grants to hospitals that serve those who cannot afford to pay. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I think the costs could be offset pretty well.
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I'm no financial expert, but every day on the news there is always something about taxes being used for frivolous reasons, either at the state or federal level, bribery among government officials, all that good crap. Would it make sense to start shifting some money around the federal level, and pay for SOME of it that way??
Please, tell me if my idea is naive and/or stupid.
Not at all. Plenty of our money is wasted on the bureaucracy. It would be great if we could streamline some of the processes of our government, and eliminate any corruption that exists, so that all of our tax dollars are being used wisely.
Shouldn't we at least reform our government and the way our tax money is spent before we voluntarily give them MORE money?
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/bamers
The vast reaches of our government are so large and integrated into our lives that we're going to solve that by making it bigger and just rearranging it all. They waste so much money on "pork bills" that we're going to trust them to fund our health care.
Sounds like a winning idea to me.
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/bamers
Are you arguing for complete governmental control of health care or private health care with public funding?
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/bamers
When I was thinking about this question (and I have to have an answer to this question, unfortunately), I was considering something like... having physicians salaried, instead of reimbursed for services. I believe that's how the Kaiser Foundation does it, and they're one of the best insurance companies I've seen.
However, I thought about it more and figured that by having physicians salaried, there wouldn't be much of incentive to treat patients, rather than just push pills at them. I thought about maybe having some way of providing bonuses to physicians that treat patients well, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do it.
I think the best way to have universal coverage is to pay physician using public funds, so the delivery, if you will, will still be entirely private, but you remove the element of people choosing one doctor over another simply because they're cheaper (and that doesn't mean that they're better).
I would not be opposed to having a private organization (a single private organization) controlling the funding for medical care. I prefer the single part because it lessens the administration of the medical care itself... doctors and nurses would not have to fill out 10 pages of information for one insurance company, for 10 insurance companies. Unfortunately, the only way I can think of to collect funds from people is to have the government collect them. At least, for universal coverage.
An alternative would be to have one coverage by all insurance companies at one price (a single risk pool). And making that price affordable to everyone, even those at or below the poverty level. That would offset costs as well. But I think having many insurance companies would complicate things more than they need to be.
~C
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Then doctors would be given a flat rate per patient/operation. There is NO competition involved. Yes, they're forced to be the "best" and yet, we see where that gets us elsewhere in our world.
Right now, better doctors charge more, because they're BETTER. These doctors would have to lower their rates to a governmental standard. Poor doctors would actually get a pay raise as they would have to raise their price to the governmental standard. Thereby eliminating the competition of good doctors vs. bad doctors.
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/bamers
In the British system, they pay doctors the same, but they can get huge bonuses based on their patient reviews, or survivability rates. A general doctor could see bonuses by getting more of his patient to stop smoking, lose weight, etc. An oncologst could get bonuses by suvivability. In a universal health care system, you can also see any doctor you want in the entire country.
Sorry, I'm not handing over control of my health care to the government.
The current private system saved my mother's life... saved her life. There is absolutely no way a universal health care system could have provided the high level of care that we have benefited from since she became ill. The surgeon she saw was out of our plan, and the insurance company STILL covered it... so in reality, you CAN see any doctor in the entire country even with a private health care system.
No, the way insurance works now is that insurance companies negotiate a fee with the practice. That fee is going to be pretty standard from one physician to the next. For Medicare and Medicaid, they have the same reimbursement for all patients (in fact, those reimbursements are going down across the board, which is one of the reasons why we're short on primary care providers... they just don't get paid well enough).
And you missed the whole point about competition... if people are going to bad doctors, they'd easily be able to switch providers (assuming there was another physician in that practice in the area). Thus, the poor doctors would have fewer patients and would thus get less money than the better doctors. If they wanted to make more (get more patients), they would have to improve. And this would not likely remove the malpractice craze we have going on, so if something went wrong with an operation, you could still sue the doctor responsible. Private practice, government funding.
I'm thinking up an alternative that I'll try to get up in the next couple weeks, but school is crazy right now, and I'm going to be out of town the rest of this week (for medical school interviews, actually), so I doubt it'll be before next Wednesday.
~C
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To those of you who think the governemnt is wasting your hard earned tax money.
You poor babies. i am so sorry that the evil government is taking your money and spending it on helping those less fortunate that yourselves.
Perhaps if the money were left in your pocket you would unilaterally find ways to help the poor.
Not likely, as your posts pretty much define you as a greedy little pigs. So stop using the government wastes money, I'm a benevolent benefactor argument. You are selfish and greedy.
If you were to be selfless in giving there wouldn't be a need for governments to redress the evils you inflict on society.
http://www.EuthanasiaClinic.com
I forgot...
While it may not be the responsibility of governments to supply health care coverage to any of it's citizens, once provided for one it should be provided, equally, to all.
Equally to all.
I'm appalled at how adamantly AGAINST universal health care some can be when they have no basis for how it works. Our country does not have universal health care hence we have no experience with it. Where does HOPE and TRUST fall then? We are bombarded by our society saying that other, different practices don't work or can't work. where is our basis for that? We are fed what the media and government feeds us, and we gobble it right up without thinking outside that tiny box. We are quick to find fault with how other countries universal health care systems work ...yet we have no idea how our own would or could work because we haven't yet tried it.
Compassion is becoming lost in the midst, in the sea, of personal greed and capitalism. Health care is a human need, not a privilege.
It sounds like you need to do some research of your own.
You speak of hope, trust, and compassion. That's all great... but can you back this up with some facts and statistics proving that socialized health care is the answer?