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Universal Health Care - Let's make this happen (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Sabertooth
- Start date
Sabertooth
Footballguy
It isn't that. It's that I don't think people should have to lose everything they've ever worked for just because they unfortunately got cancer or ALS or something.
It isn't so much that I want the government to control it, it's that free markets capitalism and medicine are not congruent. Strong survive just doesn't work for me with kids and sick people. The biggest epidemic in our country is a result of over-prescription of opiates. That's free market capitalism at work. Sell sell sell baby.
Walking into a doctor or dental office nowadays reminds me of the Alec Baldwin "Always Be Closing" speech. They are constantly trying to medicate you (what's your pain level sweetie?). They don't give a #### about your health. They want you to be sick so you will be a good life long customer. Hey if you get hooked on their pills, even better...then you are locked in for life. Think of the profits!
I always wonder if they have a tier system with companies like Purdue Pharma...kind of like Amway. Hey if you get only three more people to try our medicine, you go gold! That means a vacation at our timeshare in Aruba. Dr. Smith was our biggest seller (pusher??) this month! He gets a Cadillac!
This is no lie. God's honest truth. When my wife was pregnant and needed gall bladder surgery, the surgeon comes and and says, and I quote "Wow, you haven't been a very good consumer for the medical industry." And he chuckled. I remember he looked exactly like Marty Schottenheimer. Anyway I laughed at the time but it always stuck with me. Here he was making a joke that she wasn't making him any money because she'd never had a surgery in her life (she was 28 at the time).
I watched it when my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung, liver, breast, and stomach cancer. Zero chance of survival. But that didn't stop her oncologist from ordering test after test after test. I was sickening. Heck a week before she died he wanted another PET scan. It's like "why?" My brother, who had power of attorney, finally asked bluntly, "what are we doing these tests for doc? She needs to be on hospice." The doc then agreed. So obviously he was just playing the game. Running up the score! He wins! Drive away in his BMW. Who gives a #### right? She's just a customer.
And that's the mentality. And it's wrong. They view people not as people, but as customers now. So #### em. Big pharma, big medicine, and insurance, and doctors taking kickbacks can all take a hike. They've been exploiting the public under the guise of "trying to help" for far too long.
Making maximum profits should not be the goal of health care providers.
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culdeus
Footballguy
mr roboto
Footballguy
mr roboto
Footballguy
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Sabertooth
Footballguy
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mr roboto
Footballguy
It's all about the misalignment of incentives. It would be in the public's best interest to prevent chronic disease and have a healthy populace largely free from the need for constant medical care. It's in the medical industry's best interest to have as many people as possible just sick enough to need constant care without dying or not being able to pay their bill. Note: I'm not saying individual docs or surgeons or pharmacists all feel this way. It's simply true.
IF we had socialized medical care for all (with optional insurance available if people wanted to pay for more concierge care) these two misaligned incentives would align. That's not to say that immediately everyone would practice preventative wellness, stop smoking and lose weight and stop using heavy drugs. But, the taxpayer would be incentivized to prefer programs to help people avoid costly situations or help them out of them like drug addiction or low-income teen pregnancy (vs. now the righteous right scream about personal accountability).
Im not too worried about @Ramblin Wreck fear of WASTEZ!!!!! Cause there's soooooooooooooo much unnecessary spending in the medical field right now that should begin to disappear once the motive to profit is reduced.
IF we had socialized medical care for all (with optional insurance available if people wanted to pay for more concierge care) these two misaligned incentives would align. That's not to say that immediately everyone would practice preventative wellness, stop smoking and lose weight and stop using heavy drugs. But, the taxpayer would be incentivized to prefer programs to help people avoid costly situations or help them out of them like drug addiction or low-income teen pregnancy (vs. now the righteous right scream about personal accountability).
Im not too worried about @Ramblin Wreck fear of WASTEZ!!!!! Cause there's soooooooooooooo much unnecessary spending in the medical field right now that should begin to disappear once the motive to profit is reduced.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
roadkill1292
Footballguy
I'm assuming that by now anyone who says "death panels" in a post is just making a joke. But I've overestimated people in here before.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
No, He's asserting that privately run national defense wouldn't be as wasteful.
Which is probably true, but it would also mean when terrorists bomb poor neighborhoods, no one in the national defense industry will give a ####.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Look man, I don't disagree with most of your post. But our government is built on politicians being in bed with people with money whether it's Wall Street, foreign governments, healthcare providers or whoever. Kickbacks will still occur but will just go to government officials instead because of the #### we allow our government to get away with.
I still say if the ACA was so great, why isn't Congress on one of these plans? Why does Congress still get great healthcare (paid for by all of us)? Why aren't they treated the same as you or me or anyone else?
So I agree everyone should have access to healthcare. I agree costs are way out of control. I don't agree the government creating a monopoly on healthcare is necessarily the answer though.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
No, I didn't say that Captain Supreme Court was overthrown. You wonder why people don't engage you.
Didn't say this either. But carry on as usual.
mr roboto
Footballguy
roadkill1292
Footballguy
These threads are good for convincing the undecideds because opponents of single payer certainly aren't sending forth their best debaters.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
I'm not here to prove you right or wrong. That's your problem. You're here to win an argument not have a discussion.
mr roboto
Footballguy
I'm pretty sure no one who advocates universal health care thought the ACA was a great plan either. That screwed up the incentive mix even more.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Sabertooth
Footballguy
mr roboto
Footballguy
Wat? I've posted a couple substantive posts in the last 5 minutes (and responded to one of your substantive posts). I called you out on a talking point (the government is always wasteful).
Just saying 'the government screws everything up' is such a non-starting belief that you can't really have any discussion about, well nearly anything public policy wise.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
So what is the answer. How do you disincentive profiteering in the health care industry?
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
Help me understand the limits of care, if any. Does resource allocation ever end? Who stops resource allocation, the consumer (patient or family), or the government, and by what standards.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Maybe we start by stopping using the term Health Care Industry. It's not. It's Medical Industry. Care is an afterthought.
Care shouldn't be used in the branding.
Medical Industrial Complex is a more accurate term.
Care shouldn't be used in the branding.
Medical Industrial Complex is a more accurate term.
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Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
I must say, I liked the Americans with Disabilities Act in theory. In practice, after attorneys, courts, and advocacy groups got ahold of it, not so much. Our passion for anecdotal and personal matters drove unreasonable resource allocation.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Obama should have just rammed through what he wanted instead of entertaining the idea of compromise, which has gone the way of the Dodo bird.
mr roboto
Footballguy
This is an interesting question.
Right now, it's up to the patients and their families. But it's highly influenced by what the doctors advise. Studies have shown that doctors personally choose less care at the end of their lives than, as a profession, they recommend.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
Perhaps. Me, I do not like the trend towards temporary ruling parties thinking they have a universal mandate, or acting as is if they do so that they can ignore large parts of the populace. Elections do have consequences, but that should not include subjugation of co-equal citizens. I at least want efforts towards forging consensus, real and hard effort, before imposition of will, before raw exercise of power.
Of course I am a great fool, so there is that.
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Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
One would also presume it is influenced by financial restraint by the patients. Practical concern. Without such concern are we then destined to extraordinary, even experimental efforts in hopeless cases? (BTW, if my questions are discussed elsewhere I will take a link, gratefully. I have been remiss in thinking about this issue, and if I am behind, or asking very fundamental questions I am not doing so as some artifice or device of debate, I simply have not kept up. One cannot keep up with everything.)
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Neither is putting words in my mouth. But emoticon's are a form of communication.
mr roboto
Footballguy
Are they financial though? How does Medicare and/or supplemental insurance work now? Are there caps?
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Then discuss it with someone else. There's plenty of posters here for you to do that with.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
I don't either but it would seem the age of compromise has passed. Maybe it comes back. But it doesn't appear this will happen during the current cycle.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
I'm not sure the perfect answer but how do you do the same in politics? Do you think Washington is on the verge of cleaning up their own messes you know to look out for people instead of get votes and line their own pockets?
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
I asked because I don't know. I am confident someone will chime in. When it happens I hope it is someone who does know, not just someone who thinks they do.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Nope. If anything they are becoming more brazen.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Didn't some of the politicians a few years back try to reign in lobbyists? It doesn't appear to have worked.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
No it certainly does not. Compromise and consensus building is the work of patient and imaginative adults. I agree todays climate seems antithetical to such
Sabertooth
Footballguy
I don't know. Once you do what both parties have done to the courts system, I don't see how you walk back from that.
mr roboto
Footballguy
This is a legit concern, but most of the actual policy and administrative work done by the federal government is done by skilled and competent people just like in the private sector. The doctors at the VA or the scientists at NASA or the park rangers at a National Park or the economists at the Federal Reserve aren't pandering for votes and they aren't politicians. They are just as likely to be good or bad at their job as anyone in the same field on the private side.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
I don't see how they walk it back and I don't see how they don't.
We are a pigheaded breed. We are not willing (most of us) to die for our beliefs, though we say we are, but we are very willing to see other die for our beliefs. I am guessing that we need yet another great self created tragedy before we learn our lessons.
No. No. No. I don't trust the government to properly determine what foods are healthy and what aren't. Are eggs good or bad for me? We've changed our minds so many times, I've lost track. How many times have we realized that something we previously thought was good for us is actually bad and vice versa? I mean, there's credible research (albeit preliminary) that multivitamins don't help at all and actually contribute to cancer causes.
He did. He just forgot about hope and change and took a bite from the lobbyist and Wall St apple.
Sabertooth
Footballguy
Dedfin
Footballguy
If anyone didn't see it, John Kasich on Bill Maher's show. I would have voted for him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzEklhnkOx4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzEklhnkOx4
This isn't a good post, because it's an opinion statement with no backing at all. Why would one believe your conclusion when you haven't even included a reason that information your beliefs?
Interestingly, I don't necessarily disagree with your statement, at least in part (shades of grey here, not strictly black and white as you put it).
Ketamine Dreams
Footballguy
I didn't have time to write much earlier. I'd love to see cohort-matched outcomes, both surgical and medical. How do VA patients who present with a heart attack do? How do VA patients undergoing total knee replacement do? Much of what we do these days must be evidence-based, and outcomes is where you can most easily see how well you are doing your job.
Not how I remember it. I remember a few politicians making some vague promises about it, but no one ever following through.
