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Musicmystery -> RE: What has your party done lately that you support? (1/17/2012 11:51:14 AM)
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quote:
What do these countries have in common that differs from the US? A lot. Heres a few:
1. Population - Outside of Japan (I will get to that shortly) there is no country on that list with a top 20 population. This makes it much easier to implement for obvious reasons. There is a reason that China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Russia, etc are not on that list. How the hell are you supposed to have a single payer system in a country of 300 million plus?
2. Ethnicity - In addition to small population size, these countries are all largely ethnically homogenous - certainly much moreso than the US. Norway is composed mostly of Norwegians, Japan mostly of Japanese, etc. This makes poltical/economic/social issues easier to resolve than it would be in ethnically diverse countries. (Think about it: the divide in America today is largely the white middle class vs. blacks, hispanics, and guilt-ridden white liberals.)
3. Health - In addition to the population figures and homogeneous ethnicity, the Americans have a problem that other countries don't have: horrible health. That's right. Those Swedes, Japs, Norweigans, Canadiens, Aussies, and the rest of the countries on that list are not fat slobs that eat poor diets and don't exercise. American health care costs would be vastly more expensive than those in other countries because of this. Single payer also will worsen the financial picture as it socializes the risk onto everyone in society instead of the pre-approved insurance pool; it encourages recklessness since everyone is covered regardless of the health/lifestyle choices.
4. Divide in opinion - Unlike all those other countries, single payer health care does not have majority support in the US. Why would a single payer system be introduced when many people don't want it?
What you have here is a set of assumptions. Population...so a successful insurance company, for example, would fail by having millions of customers? Numbers is the point of insurance. Ethnicity...an irrelevant point, not to mention the assumption of your breakdown. Health...we have disease treatment system, not a health care system. That could start to change with affordable options. Instead of going to the ER with blocked arteries, more people would have annual checkups, for instance. Opinion...this is debatable, and the polls are so partisan that data in either direction will be dismissed by readers from the other persuasion.
But the main point is---the comparison to other countries is also irrelevant. What we have now was a creative and innovative idea for an age when insurance coverage was reserved for the wealthy. But the times have changed, and what was good for a few leading companies is not a viable plan universally. The model will have to change. If not single payer, another one, but single payer is the only other option beyond status quo, and status quo is ever rising costs.
What the Supreme Court or the States do with 2014 is also irrelevant. The status quo is unsustainable, and when it crashes, it will be replaced with a single payer system, simply because the other option, no healthy care options, is certainly not supported by the majority.
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