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Universal Health Care - Let's make this happen (1 Viewer)

BFS, even if it's true that people who live healthy lives cost more in the long run, can't it also be true that people who live unhealthy lives drive up costs for everyone, not just themselves? 

 
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AAABatteries said:
Sure, and cigarettes aren't unhealthy if I only smoke one in my lifetime.  I'm not advocating for Tim's tax proposal but your  statement is very misleading, IMO.  There's lots of food that's are unhealthy.
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Example?

It isn't a misleading statement. No food itself is unhealthy. Almost any food eaten to excess is unhealthy. 

 
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Short Corner said:
They can still get private supplemental insurance.  Pretty popular in Germany.  Single rooms.  Front of the line for catscans and MRI's, etc.
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This is bull####. It's bad enough that people who pay a little extra get to bypass lines for TSA screening. But no ####### way should someone get to go to the front of line for medical procedures because they pay more

 
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
If you are using a consumption tax to promote public health you are on the right track.   However, if you are looking for people to mostly pay for their own health care you have this backwards.   Smokers, the obese, the alcoholics cost less for  health care over their lives than the healthy.  The reason should be obvious.  They die young.   They die before they can rack up all of the costs for their Alzheimer's or osteoporosis or other chronic, slowly debilitating costly conditions.   Study after study has shown that smokers cost less for a lifetime of health care.  The obese are somewhere in the middle.  And the healthy actually cost the most.

Now, to me at least there are more concerns involved than simply the dollars and cents for health care.  Including among others what possibly those that are "slowed down" due to these lifestyle choices could have contributed to society, especially to those few that cared about them.  And the ripple impacts from those added contributions.   But in the single dimension of lifetime expenditure on health care the healthy are more costly.
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If people that make unhealthy choices are going to die young anyway then we don't need to worry about covering them. 

 
the moops said:
This is bull####. It's bad enough that people who pay a little extra get to bypass lines for TSA screening. But no ####### way should someone get to go to the front of line for medical procedures because they pay more
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When the govt runs healthcare who decides who gets to visit dr Andrews for their knee replacement and who has to see the guy that just graduated med school?

 
timschochet said:
BFS, even if it's true that people who live healthy lives cost more in the long run, can't it also be true that people who live unhealthy lives drive up costs for everyone, not just themselves? 
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Of course.   To the degree that demand curves" apply to health care pricing your unhealthy lifestyle will result in greater utilization pushing up demand  In addition, most of the health care that the healthier are going to receive is going to be Medicare off in the future which means it will need to be paid for mostly by future tax payers since we aren't properly funding that today.  So your cost are now and the short term so to the degree that others are sharing in the cost (i.e. insurance) they are paying now.   

I'd also guess that while graphs such as this one reflect how age is the driver in predicting health cost, it seems obvious that being healthier on average would shift the curve down on the axis and probably bend the curve downwards a bit.   And again, there are other costs besides the cost of health care services.  Such as the societal costs of your declining abilities to post here.

 
Make marijuana legal tax it like hotel rooms and use the taxes to fund single payer.  It might not fund it all, but it would fund a major part of it, right?

 
timschochet said:
That's a good argument. I hadn't thought of that, honestly, and I'm  not sure that healthcare would work anything close to the same way- but it's a fascinating analogy to make. 
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I agree. It easier to pay people to save other people.

It's paying people to kill other people that's hard. 

 
the moops said:
This is bull####. It's bad enough that people who pay a little extra get to bypass lines for TSA screening. But no ####### way should someone get to go to the front of line for medical procedures because they pay more
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Of course you are correct, but lets not allow the perfect be the enemy of what would be a vastly superior but still flawed system.

 
worrierking said:
Tim is right that it may be inevitable.  It distresses me that people have that much faith in government when it demonstrates on a daily basis that it is incapable of handling such a responsibility.
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Great post.   I'm in the same camp as in no faith in the government.   I do wish it wasn't so.  I really do.

 
the moops said:
This is bull####. It's bad enough that people who pay a little extra get to bypass lines for TSA screening. But no ####### way should someone get to go to the front of line for medical procedures because they pay more
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Not a Kimmel fan eh?

 
the moops said:
This is bull####. It's bad enough that people who pay a little extra get to bypass lines for TSA screening. But no ####### way should someone get to go to the front of line for medical procedures because they pay more
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You do know they do that now, right?

 
Deep fried Twinkies

Deep fried Snickers

sure I could eat half of one bite but to argue that these are healthy is stupid - or are there more categories than healthy and unhealthy?

 
AAABatteries said:
Twinkies
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I'm not going to say Twinkies are healthy, but they are far from being a good example of an unhealthy food.

One Twinkie is only 130 calories and 14.5 grams of sugar, compared with a Coke that has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar.

If one needs a satisfy a sweet tooth craving, a Twinkie isn't a bad way to satisfy it. 

Or are you suggesting that eating healthy requires absolute abstinence from sweets?

 
I am definitely one who has evolved on this issue.  As a typical fiscal conservative who voted most of the time on the right of the aisle until the last ten years, I firmly believe that universal health care is not only the right thing to do, but also necessary to put our corporations on equal footing with the rest of the world we are competing with.  Breaking the employer health care model would benefit us all I believe in the long run.

BTW, I agree with whatever Bottomfeeder Sports or Henry Ford are saying on this issue despite disagreeing on many others that are topical at the moment.

 
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Honestly, it's going to take a conservative to propose and get universal, socialized health care passed.  They will need to sell the "business needs this to remain competitive" to overcome the opposition to socialism.  But healthy population that isn't one illness away from bankruptcy is for the betterment of the economy of the country as a whole.

Just think about how it will free entrepreneurs and small businesses if they don't have to worry about this aspect of employee compensation.

 
The Z Machine said:
Honestly, it's going to take a conservative to propose and get universal, socialized health care passed.  They will need to sell the "business needs this to remain competitive" to overcome the opposition to socialism.  But healthy population that isn't one illness away from bankruptcy is for the betterment of the economy of the country as a whole.

Just think about how it will free entrepreneurs and small businesses if they don't have to worry about this aspect of employee compensation.
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That's a great angle actually.  Freedom to Pursue you Dreams!  I know a ton of people in jobs they don't like because of the "bennies."  

 
Politician Spock said:
I'm not going to say Twinkies are healthy, but they are far from being a good example of an unhealthy food.

One Twinkie is only 130 calories and 14.5 grams of sugar, compared with a Coke that has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar.

If one needs a satisfy a sweet tooth craving, a Twinkie isn't a bad way to satisfy it. 

Or are you suggesting that eating healthy requires absolute abstinence from sweets?
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I'm not going to hijack any more after this - my point was it's misleading to say no food is unhealthy in moderation - that means you are saying all food IS healthy in moderation.  I never said you'd get hurt from eating one Twinkie but you also won't get hurt smoking one cigarette and nobody would say that's healthy for you.  Maybe it's semantics but I'ver never heard somebody argue that candy bars and cakes and soda are "healthy".  That's why I said it's misleading - we would crucify those companies if they said "this is healthy in moderation".

 
Chaka said:
Forget industrialized.

Infant Mortality Rates from that pesky partisan organization called the Central Intelligence Agency

We rank 57th with 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. Now that's what I call American Exceptionalism Mediocralism.

Here is the list of countries that we rank above the US in infant mortality.

MONACO
JAPAN
ICELAND
SINGAPORE
NORWAY
FINLAND
BERMUDA
SWEDEN
CZECHIA
HONG KONG
KOREA, SOUTH
MACAU
SPAIN
FRANCE
ITALY
LUXEMBOURG
AUSTRIA
ANGUILLA
BELGIUM
GUERNSEY
GERMANY
ISRAEL
MALTA
NETHERLANDS
ANDORRA
BELARUS
SWITZERLAND
IRELAND
ESTONIA
JERSEY
LITHUANIA
SLOVENIA
DENMARK
EUROPEAN UNION
ISLE OF MAN
UNITED KINGDOM
LIECHTENSTEIN
AUSTRALIA
SAN MARINO
TAIWAN
PORTUGAL
WALLIS AND FUTUNA
NEW ZEALAND
POLAND
CUBA
GREECE
CANADA
FRENCH POLYNESIA
HUNGARY
SLOVAKIA
NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
NEW CALEDONIA
LATVIA
GUAM
FAROE ISLANDS
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
UNITED STATES
 
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This is what happens when you have half the Nations births paid for by the government.  And you want more of this. Why do you hate babies?

 
AAABatteries said:
I'm not going to hijack any more after this - my point was it's misleading to say no food is unhealthy in moderation - that means you are saying all food IS healthy in moderation.  I never said you'd get hurt from eating one Twinkie but you also won't get hurt smoking one cigarette and nobody would say that's healthy for you.  Maybe it's semantics but I'ver never heard somebody argue that candy bars and cakes and soda are "healthy".  That's why I said it's misleading - we would crucify those companies if they said "this is healthy in moderation".
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The bolded is not correct. 

 
Cliff Clavin said:
This is incredibly dumb. Me eating an "unhealthy" bag of chips, for example,  has zero impact on my health. No food is "unhealthy" in moderation. 
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No. But if you disproportionately consume soda, chips, bleached white flour, fried foods etc you will be less healthy. And you will have 'paid more in' by buying those foods. 

Im not defending Tims idea but your 'single bag of chips' example is irrelevant. 

 
I still think the best way to do this is a hybrid that leverages our existing provider and payer systems:

  • Gov't covers the cost of a basic plan for everyone, modeled on current medicaid/medicare coverage
  • Insurance companies administer the coverage and can sell over the top for enhanced coverage/networks, etc, ala Medicare Plus
  • Fund by expanding current Medicare/Medicaid payroll taxes and removing the tax break for employer provided health benefits

 
Short Corner said:
This is why America is full of fat ####s.
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I would agree with you if thousands of cashiers had been saying "do you want Twinkies with that" for decades.

If everyone had eaten a twinkie instead of fries and soda with their hamburger that would have reduced their sugar, fat and caloric intake significantly. 

Again, I'm not going to say Twinkies are healthy. But when asked for an example of an unhealthy food, there were far better examples. 

 
Arsenal of Doom said:
I still think the best way to do this is a hybrid that leverages our existing provider and payer systems:

  • Gov't covers the cost of a basic plan for everyone, modeled on current medicaid/medicare coverage
  • Insurance companies administer the coverage and can sell over the top for enhanced coverage/networks, etc, ala Medicare Plus
  • Fund by expanding current Medicare/Medicaid payroll taxes and removing the tax break for employer provided health benefits
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This makes a lot of sense and I would support this. 

I am like others in this thread that have come around to the fact that unless we have some sort of government provided healthcare we will have a large uninsured pool of individuals especially since there seems to be no support for an individual mandate. 

 
2017. First World Country. "Greatest" country on earth....

and this has to be an effing topic on a message board. health care. HEALTH CARE.

unreal times. One thing about your country I will never, ever understand

 
Soulfly3 said:
2017. First World Country. "Greatest" country on earth....

and this has to be an effing topic on a message board. health care. HEALTH CARE.

unreal times. One thing about your country I will never, ever understand
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The history of our employer based system is actually kind of interesting given it was a by product of WWII. 

 
Ketamine Dreams said:
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
Sure there are the scandals (including exaggerating performance metrics), but in the big pictures the VA is always at the top of the charts when evaluating care.  There can also be wait times in regions where population shifted from the rust belt to the sun belt, but this usually means veterans who have multiple choices on where to get care are choosing to get it at the VA.  

The VA might be far less than what veterans deserve for their service, but the care provided by the VA is better than the average  care from the "best health care system in the world" that the rest of us receive.   
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This is blatantly false. Please don't ever believe that the VA healthcare is better than what the average private insurance person in the US receives. The VA is a model of long waits, limited resources, red tape and missed opportunities. I have worked in both systems and the VA isn't something any of you want. I only allow my dad to go to the VA for its cheap prescriptions, otherwise he goes to his regular docs and hospital for everything else. 
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Ops I missed ths,,,

From 2016

Sixty-nine articles were identified (including 31 articles from the prior systematic review and 38 new articles) that address one or more Institute of Medicine quality dimensions: safety (34 articles), effectiveness (24 articles), ,,,,. Studies of safety and effectiveness indicated generally better or equal performance, with some exceptions.

The VA often (but not always) performs better than or similarly to other systems of care with regard to the safety and effectiveness of care. Additional studies of quality of care in the VA are needed on all aspects of quality, but particularly with regard to timeliness, equity, efficiency, and patient-centeredness.
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And an article on the study.

 
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