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 ItchyYou have to understand in the USA, we have a large and powerful insurance industry that makes millions off of people. No other country has a similar set of crying leeches to support. Single payer would put them out of business. And since we have Congress which is nothing but a pack of w****s bought and paid for by the highest bidder, the Obama Afordable Health Care Act was a compromise to allow our insuance industry to continue to survive, yet to limit their profits which are unsustainable and will sink the Republic. "Obamacare" is our attempt at "baby steps" in the right direction. |
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illi There is a reason that monopolies were outlawed. Monopolies can raise prices unfettered. Monopolies do not need to provide adequate services and/or products. Monopolies can ignore customer complaints and safety. That is why the government forced huge monopolistic corporations to break up into smaller pieces, or to sell off certain divisions into separate stand-alone companies with competitors. Look at IBM or Ma Bell. This philosophy recognizes that competition is the way to protect the public, keeps costs lower to the public, improve services to the public, and drive the engine of innovation for new and better products and services. Single payer in health care will ruin it. It will drive the other insurance companies out of business, meaning costs will rise, services will suffer, products (plans and terms) will diminish in scope and become more generic (one size fits all). Just as in single party rule (think Communism, PRI in Mexico, and other despotic ruled countries) those countries were not considered "enlightened", democratic, and certainly not noted for their support for the individual, the rule-of-law, or rights and freedoms. So too will single payer be a bad result for health care insurance. |
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illinawek 19-Aug-12, 11:10 |
Deleted by illinawek on 19-Aug-12, 11:10.
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Softie You are a Marine and you were under a single payer system at one time. Over half of the health care dollars spent in the USA are spent by a single payer for VA, Medicaid and Medicare right now. Insurance companies pay only for the needs of the young and healthy, after skimming an obscene amount off the top to fund their vast bureaucracies. Its why it costs three times more for health care in the USA than anywhere else in the World. Why do you consider the USA the only nation in the World too puny, too incompetent, too poor to run a single payer system like the rest of the World does? |
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Illi I think it unreasonable for anyone to think that a private, for-profit company (that must keep costs as low as possible in order to beat competition) would have a larger bureaucracy than a central government who is not in competition with anybody and has no reason to worry about keeping costs low. Now really, who do you think has a smaller, more efficient staff? government with no inclination to keep costs low OR a private, for-profit company in competition with other insurance companies? An honest answer please. |
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How do you suppose that the Government presently insures the sick and elderly at a lower cost than insuance companies do for the cherry picked group of healthy and young they insure. The Government doesn't have to pay a fleet of CEOs. Those guys really drive up the costs. |
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We're talking about health-care systems to which my comment is spot on and all you can do to defend monopoly is to pop off with some reviling hyperbolic quip that I guess you think is some kind of clever comeback. Good luck with that. |
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Illi |
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Now, without getting personal, this is the answer I guess you are looking for. By analogy, there will never been more than three domestic car makers. There will be no more than a handful of steel makers. AND, you will never get to make your selection of more than ONE power company. The reason why is that these industries only operate efficiently at large economies of scale. Monopolies are not inefficient for certain industries, so with some industries they are given a monopoly exemption by law and are regulated by the Government. Major League Baseball and your local power company come to mind. Healthcare does not behave as a free market and there are a number of reasons this is so. One of the reasons is that they operate in secrecy, another is they are half-socialized to begin with and the third is a consumer rarely makes the decision of whether they need it or not. Often you get the care or you die. This means it is not a free market place, and free market place rules do not create maximum efficiency. You analogy of parasitism is not as clever as you think. And again, without getting personal, its kind of stupid. Real stupid. |
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What about the cost of further intrusions? Google earth, google street, ssn to get a phone, over 135 monitoring cameras between home and Lynwood, drones with down looking digital recorders flying overhead, digital face recognition and license plate readers roaming the highways and overpasses, software to integrate data, on and on, and you're arguing for supporting increasing government's ability to poke about in our healthcare choices and treatment because you say it's efficient? That's not what I call desirable. I think a tapeworm parasite is a great analogy. They sap your energy and nutrients though I guess you could argue that they keep you thin, but I don't think people (if given the choice) think that's a good trade-off. |
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There is now bills in state legislatures to mandate that every car have installed a GPS tracker so that the government can measure (and tax) you on the miles you drive. That should be scary enough but then add to it that they will know everywhere and every when you go somewhere. Big brother is here. |
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Are you saying that tracking people, whether by GPS installed in the car or by cell phone is ok with you? |
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Seriously I think the whole world has gone mad with technology particularly in the information and securities areas where it impacts on individual liberties. Corporations as well as governments know far too much about all of us. |
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Change I wonder who are the real 'terrorists' here. |
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with difficulty stinky, i don't find there is any party i agree with wholly. I just pick whoever i disagree with least. |
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Why is it that you assume a government tax would cost less than insurance premiums? $500 a month sounds like a huge cost to me, my national insurance contributions were six times less than that when I was earning, and at the moment because of my student status I pay nothing. And yet i can walk into any NHS hospital and get treatment, for free. |
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Convincing people that it's 'free' is a big part of the sell. Sorry to break it to you like this Itchy, but nothing is 'free'. |
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thumper |
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Online Chess Players… DoK |
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Stinky |
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Thumper |
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Well I mean it's free at the point of need. But as I said, which you curiously failed to quote, when I was earning I paid a national insurance tax that was many times less than your insurance premiums. You might reasonably say that we have very different situations and incomes, and so maybe it's an unfair comparison, but in that case look up the averages. The average american pays much more than the average brit for healthcare, and indeed much more than the average citizen of any developed country. Saying that a centralised system costs necessarily more to run is flatly wrong, because there is no profit margin or shareholders to take money out of the system. |
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Itchy Stinky - This kind of dovetails nicely because you and Itchy seem to be on the same page. Again, no one is saying that our system is perfect and the cat's meow with no tweaking or improving necessary. What we're saying is that we don't want the European model. Pretty straight forward really. Some in power at the moment seem to think they can shove their version of a European overhaul down our throats even after we made it clear we don't want it. We'll see what happens come November. |
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