Even if it has some regulations(preferably not). Generally when I argue with people who like the new healthcare reform and UHC, the one point I can't ever get around is that in those systems the price is able to remain relatively low compared the one in the US( I know ours isn't a free system) is because everyone is forced to pay into it so theres a larger pool which in turn causes it to be relatively cheaper compared to other systems. I don't understand everything about it entirely, but I do think doing things such as people paying for their own checks up instead of relying on on insurance and negotiating prices with their physician could help keep prices down for insurance, but the goal would be to make it an attrative option to get insurance instead of it being forced.
I'm looking for something more detailed than saying "get government out of it" because your average person wouldn't buy that and I typically wouldn't be convinced. If there are other alternatives I would love to hear them.
I'm actually not opposed to government-funded health care, but at the same time, the government is the main reason why health care is so expensive.
Government enforces the legal cartel of doctors, which limits the supply of health care providers.
Consider the fact that only doctors are allowed write give prescriptions, despite the fact that pharmacists have the skills to diagnose and write prescriptions. In many countries, you can go straight to the pharmacist for a prescription, which cuts out a middleman and lowers prices.
In many states, mid-wives are banned, so that only doctors can deliver babies, even if midwives are vigorously trained in how to deliver babies - again creating a government enforced cartel which raises prices.
The FDA makes it a crime to claim that foods, herbs, or excercies can 'treat any disease,' despite reams of peer-reviewed science proving they can, which has the effect of limiting health care to often expensive pharmaceuticals.
The AMA gets to decide who is a doctor - they give accredidation to universities. As basically a guild, their interest is in ther being as few doctors as possible, which is part of the reason med-school takes so long.
So imagine there were alternatives to being AMA certified - that students could start med-school straight out of high school - that Americans could go straight to pharmacists to get presecriptions, could go to midwives for natal care, could go to nutritionists for diagnoses and treatment - that doctors were forced to compete on the free market.
What do you think would happen to the price of doctors bills? What do you think would happen to the cost of health care?
"the way insurance is supposed to work."
This is a good post about why having a system of insurance for day-to-day health care doesn't make sense in the first place.
"You just gobble up every bit a baloney someone feeds you?"
Caley, don't antagonize newbies.
Viception: “Economic competition benefits buyers resulting in better cars, clothes, computers, and other things. Without nonconsensual initiatory aggression, good companies profit while bad companies do not, at least not as much. Competition and price-aware buyers help products become good. More competition and price-awareness would help medicine. For example, cosmetic and Lasik eye surgery prices are lower due to competition and price-awareness. Health insurance means the insured do not pay the full medical costs. Thus the insured demand the best and care less about cost. Buyers prefer surgery instead of drugs, even if the medical benefits are small. Buyers use every life-saving intervention despite costs and low benefits. Most people do not pay the full cost of their health insurance. In this country, the poor and the old get free or subsidized insurance via Medicaid or Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare helped raise healthcare costs because they subsidized healthcare usage. The more demand, ability and willingness to pay, that exists for anything allows its cost to rise. Health insurance hurts individual incentive to compare prices. What if you had gasoline insurance? Why would you care what gasoline’s price is since your insurance is paying for it? Health insurance should be for unpredictable, catastrophic events, not a pre-payment plan for routine care. Some homeowners have fire insurance, but usually not maintenance insurance. The fire insurance is for a catastrophic loss which is an unlikely, but costly event. Thus, fire insurance is affordable since the premiums paid by all the homeowners whose houses do not burn down pay for the homes that burn down. State governments require health insurance to cover routine physicals, mammograms, chiropractors, and hundreds of other procedures which raises costs. What is and is not insured should be determined by buyer preferences, not political lobbyists. Government healthcare, Medicare for example, is popular because people like getting free stuff, but Medicare is financially unsustainable. Medicare has low administrative costs while healthcare companies have higher administrative costs. How could the government be allegedly more efficient? The administrative costs are to prevent fraud. Government can lose money yearly, but healthcare companies cannot. They cannot tax, borrow, and print money to continue their business. If insurance companies accepted every sick applicant and never denied any claim, they would be out of business. Part of healthcare is taking care of oneself. Drinking too much alcohol, smoking, not exercising, unsafe driving and engaging in other unhealthy behaviors are choices that have costs. Unless the government is going to limit and monitor alcohol consumption, end smoking, have teams of exercise police to enforce mandatory exercise, and do other things to ensure people are healthy, then some people will remain less healthy. I believe everyone should make their own healthcare choices, not the government. One reason for rising healthcare costs in the United States is medical people practice defensive medicine: ordering excessive diagnostic tests primarily to avoid malpractice liability. To lower healthcare costs, end government interference. Allow health insurance purchases across state lines, raising competition. Allow drug imports. Abolish the drug-certifying Food and Drug Administration monopoly. The common problems with the Food and Drug Administration is that it approves a drug with little testing or it takes years to approve a drug. Private drug-certifying companies could exist. They would depend on their reputation. If they did a bad job, they likely would not continue to be funded, unlike the Food and Drug Administration. Legalize all drugs. End the state medical licensing monopoly. Private companies can provide certification. Monopoly licensing can restrict doctors from giving better advice. If a patient is stressed and depressed, maybe daily meditation can help, but that may not be government-approved whereas some drugs are. More healthcare liberty would allow different treatments, not just government-approved practices. This probably is not a complete list of ways to improve healthcare, but more liberty is the one-word solution.”
in those systems the price is able to remain relatively low compared the one in the US( I know ours isn't a free system) is because everyone is forced to pay into it so theres a larger pool which in turn causes it to be relatively cheaper compared to other systems.
The opposite is true. Being forced to pay into it means you will get less bang for more buck. Which is why you have to be forced to pay into it in the first place. The only price in a state hospital/clinic is what the state pays for labour and capital. The tend to pay lower wages just because they can. The U.S. pays staff higher wages to be more competitive. That is why the U.S has 125% the M.D. per capita of the next highest and 1/3 of all M.D.'s trained in Canada are practicing there.
Can you elaborate instead of saying it's wrong please.
While the quality of might be a bit lower than in the US(if you can pay) the rates in countries that have UHC are cheaper averaging around $2500 compared to out 6000+.The people living in those countries are healthy and not dying because of their system. I'm not arguing in favor in these systems since I think they are unsustainable in the long run and I don't think healthcare is an inherit right, I just dont know of a viable alternative yet that is just as effective.
I'm still trying to figure out how to use the quote system
@OP: I think I have just the argument you're looking for in this blog post. Tell me what you think. Here's an excerpt:
Through redistribution, the government can make any subset of goods and services "universal", i.e., provide them free of charge. Roads are one example of a good that the government universalizes, that is, provides largely free of charge to everyone for good or ill. ... Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If the government provides this or that good or service for free, then that good or service is being paid for from somewhere else in the economy. That is, "free" health care is paid for, to at least an equal extent, by other things being more expensive. By lowering the price of one thing to zero, the costs of other things must go up*.
...
Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If the government provides this or that good or service for free, then that good or service is being paid for from somewhere else in the economy. That is, "free" health care is paid for, to at least an equal extent, by other things being more expensive. By lowering the price of one thing to zero, the costs of other things must go up*.
Clayton -
While the quality of might be a bit lower than in the US(if you can pay) the rates in countries that have UHC are cheaper averaging around $2500 compared to out 6000+.The people living in those countries are healthy and not dying because of their system.
You just gobble up every bit a baloney someone feeds you?
No I've done my own research on the subject in the past. If I gobbled up everything someone told me I would just spout "take the government out of it" without going into details. If you aren't going to help me with my answer then please don't post in my topic please anymore. I don't want a flame war.
@Clayton
Thank you. I'll read it right now.
No I've done my own research on the subject in the past.
You got your data from a non partisan organization?
I say what I say because those infos are the same used by communists from communist sources using the same equivocation fallacy about costs and prices.
@OP: I think I have just the argument you're looking for in this blog post. Tell me what you think. Here's an excerpt: Through redistribution, the government can make any subset of goods and services "universal", i.e., provide them free of charge. Roads are one example of a good that the government universalizes, that is, provides largely free of charge to everyone for good or ill. ... Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If the government provides this or that good or service for free, then that good or service is being paid for from somewhere else in the economy. That is, "free" health care is paid for, to at least an equal extent, by other things being more expensive. By lowering the price of one thing to zero, the costs of other things must go up*. Clayton -
Through redistribution, the government can make any subset of goods and services "universal", i.e., provide them free of charge. Roads are one example of a good that the government universalizes, that is, provides largely free of charge to everyone for good or ill.
Thank you Ravochol that was really informative. I read on Dr. Paul's book that one of the possible causes behind healthcare costs rising is because the amount of money that gets dumped into medical programs which leads to inflation though I don't think a single underlining cause as to why costs have been rising has been pinpointed. Though how do people who can't afford care in ER rooms and people who don't have healthcare in general play into this since they are supposed to be a big reason why costs rise since they usually go bankrupt(or people being dropped).
Ask some specific questions and I'll give you specific answers. The basic gist of the blog post is that universalizing something (making it "free") necessarily raises the cost of everything else in the economy (including essentials, for example, food). So, if you're going to make everything else more expensive in order to make X good or service free, it makes sense that you should only choose the most important goods and services to be free, that is, universalized. What's vague about that?
I don't see why you have to attack other people to get good health care. There's no reason workers can't form a co-op or something. Healthcare has no collective action problems. No one can possibly make an argument for state-run healthcare that excludes free market healthcare.