B4UTRUST wrote:And I still dispite the fact that because the system works for some it will work for us. The United States is more then capable of fucking this up very easily. The rest of the world that has this sort of program in place is NOT the United States. The United States is a whole different beast then Canada and other countries. Our issues and problems are not theirs.
American Exceptionalism? That's the rebuttal? That America is more blindingly incompetent than France, or indeed, any other 1st world nation? Not to mention that there is simply no evidence to reach this conclusion.
You want me to sit here and list reasons why I don't think this will work? Here you go:
With the government being in control of the health care system there is a significant chance, especially with this administration, that the right to doctor-patient confidentiality and patient privacy will decline. While most people wouldn't care if someone knows they have a cold, there are problems that people would like to keep private. And while I have no absolute proof that this is what would happen, I again say that there is a large chance based on the privacy issues of the last few years.
Ah, I think I begin to see the problem. You don't actually know what the Canadian system(Or many others) are. The Canadian system is not government control of healthcare; it is a single, all-encompassing form of Health Insurance. Medicare but for everyone, not just Old People.
It slows down innovation and inhibits new technologies from being developed and utilized. This simply means that medical technologies are less likely to be researched and manufactured, and technologies that are available are less likely to be used.
A frequent lie by the companies who participate in the R&D, but entirely farcical, and entirely to protect themselves from a reform that is needed either way: Patent reform on medications and some sane pricing controls on them. The majority of the cost for R&D is government funding and university funding.
Free healthcare can lead to overuse of medical services, and hence raise overall cost.
No evidence points to this conclusion.
Socialized medicine leads to greater inefficiencies and inequalities.
Not in comparison to the American system, which suffers from far greater per-capita costs and has 45 million with
no coverage whatsoever. It is quite impossible to have more of an inequality than 'No, you get nothing' to that many people.
Government-mandated procedures reduce doctor flexibility. This, along with the loss of private practice options and possible reduced pay dissuades many would-be doctors from pursuing the profession.
This is again a mistake of what is being proposed.
Socialized medicine leads to shortages, which force governments to decrease the availability of health care through rationing. This unnecessarily prolongs suffering, and can lead to preventable deaths. For example, in countries that have socialized medicine, people often must be on a waiting list for years before they can see a doctor. Even when someone does get to see a medical professional, the quality of care that the medical professional is able to provide is lower.
This is a distortion of the reality, and one eagerly repeated by those who have financial gain for repeating it.
There is no 'months wait' to see a doctor in any country with nationalized healthcare or single payer. There is sometimes months wait for
purely elective procedures. The reason for this is efficiency: The system discourages wasteful oversupply, and those with, you know, vital need go first.
It suffers from the same financial problems as any other government planned economy. Not only does it require governments to greatly increase taxes, it requires more and more money each year. Essentially, universal health care tries to do the economically impossible.
The per-capita costs of a single-payer system are less than Medicare currently. This is, simply put, wrong.
Government agencies are less efficient due to bureaucracy. Administrative duties, by doctors, are the result of medical centralization and over-regulation, and are not natural to the profession. In fact, before heavy regulation of the health care and insurance industries, doctor visits to the elderly, and free care, or low cost care to impoverished patients was common; governments regulated this form of charity out of existence. Universal health care plans will add more inefficiency to the medical system because of more bureaucratic oversight and more paperwork, which will lead to less doctor patient visits.
Please examine actual numbers for administrative overhead within actual US insurance agencies/HMOs and actual single payer systems, then return.
Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity lead to greater cost control and effectiveness.
Within an optimized free market. It is impossible to create one for healthcare.
Healthy people who take care of themselves have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
Welcome to the concept of the Social Contract. It's been the basis of civilization since the dawn of time. Also: You already pay for these people.
Empirical evidence on single payer insurance programs demonstrates that the cost exceeds the expectations of advocates.
Kindly show this evidence.
And in that same nutshell here's the reasons not to:
- There isn't a single government agency or division that runs efficiently; do we really want an organization that developed the U.S. Tax Code handling something as complex as health care?
No; I want the organization running Medicare doing it.
Folks, a reminder: You have a single-payer healthcare coverage system. You simply need to reform the heathcare industry to make it possible to cover everyone.
"Free" health care isn't really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.
Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness.
This is not possible with healthcare, because the Free Market is
not a magic wand. It is a series of highly optimized and, at times, completely unacheivable requirements that make Capitalism work. I will go into a lengthier discourse on this at the end of the post.
Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility.
Based on a misconception of what is being argued, therefore discardable.
Patients aren't likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.
Drug costs can only be curbed by cracking down on the abuses of the companies, and such should be done.
Just because Americans are uninsured doesn't mean they can't receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don't have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance.
Here's what baffles me: People think
this is free. The costs of this are being paid by everyone already, yet the 'We would have to pay for freeloaders' complaint is still used, often, as this post shows, in the same argument.
Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care.
Misconception.
Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
People already do this, as noted above in the section where anyone can get treatment at a hospital.
A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.
Those insurance agencies unable to compete against a single payer system would suffer. I see no particular reason to shed a tear for them.
Loss of private practice options and possible reduced pay may dissuade many would-be doctors from pursuing the profession.
Malpractice insurance providers abusing their ability to set price cause more of this than any unevidenced worries.
Like social security, any government benefit eventually is taken as a "right" by the public, meaning that it's politically near impossible to remove or curtail it later on when costs get out of control.[/list]
I think this sums up both sides of the arguement
Right To Life is, in fact, in the Founding Documents.
Now. Let's see. The Free Market. There are requirements for the Free Market to actually
work. Can they, nevermind
do they, work in Healthcare?
Voluntary Exchange: Impossible. You cannot be 'uncoerced' when it comes to healthcare, because your health will be inherently dependent on it.
Supply And Demand: Demand is inflexible, so this is already half-dead. As an aside, B4, you demand a contradiction: That there be no wait times(Thus requiring an inefficient surplus of resources), yet effiency(Which requires a small surplus). This is logically impossible, nevermind physically.
Low barrier to entry: Technically speaking, Free Market Capitalism can work without competition, as long as it's easy for competition to spring up. The required capital to insure individuals in the realm of medicine means this is not possible(Though reforms in areas other than insurance
could remedy this.).
I have skipped over Economic Equilibrium because there is insufficient data to discuss whether it applies to Insurance in the traditional sense, though HMOs definately do
not act within the requirements of Equilibrium.
This is independent of any ethical argument, of course; merely an analysis of whether free market capitalism could actually work within the framework of health care coverage. People need to remember that it's a theoretical model, very difficult to properly make work.
Half-Damned, All Hero.
Tev: You're happy. You're Plotting. You're Evil.
Me: Evil is so inappropriate. I'm ruthless.
Tev: You're turning me on.
I Am Rage. You Will Know My Fury.
. You know damn well that the system will quickly become seriously abused, as our wonderful public programs have in the past, and MY quality of care will drop. I receive good coverage because I PAY for good coverage. I don't want shitty coverage at a less price, and I especially don't want to fund other people's health care.