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LookieNoNookie -> RE: Advocacy group: 26,000 die prematurely without health insurance (7/2/2012 5:01:12 PM)
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
I'm not sure it's useful to get into minute detail over the similarities and differences between the US and Australia. At a macro level there are few countries more similar. Of course there will be variations but I doubt if the differences between here and the US would be greater than the differences between Florida and Alaska.
The 3 things I brought up, are not minute details. Part of the problem in the US, is that our lifestyle is such, that consumption is king. We consume to excess and beyond. And, yes, I do absolutely believe that is massively important.
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A news report here a few days ago had a 'typical American family' with an income of $48,000pa paying $13,000pa for healthcare. That would be more than the total tax deduction for all Govt. services for an equivalent family here. We pay 9.1% of GDP for 100% coverage healthcare, the US pays c16% and that leaves 50,000,000 Americans without coverage. The disparity is such that any over charging would seem to be in the US private system.
This is especially apparent in prescription drug costs. Here the Govt acts as "single buyer" for the entire population and negotiates favourable deals with the pharmaceutical companies so that no necessary prescription drugs are unaffordable. See here for details. So almost all prescriptions cost less than $10 to fill at the chemists (even less for those on benefits). Some version of this scheme like this would be easily transferable to US conditions and save US consumers billions. It completely changes the power dynamics between consumers and Big Pharma.
And here is where you are missing the boat. Big Pharma and our elected officials will always be linked until we can sever the $$ ties between them. PPACA doesn't do that. If anything, PPACA strengthened that link.
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Markets work best when the name of the game is profit, when the outcome can be measured in dollars and cents. Healthcare is different - we can't accurately put a $ figure on a person's health. In healthcare the end object is health, not profit and the international experience is that public systems offer far better coverage with far better health outcomes for far fewer $ than private systems.
One of the big problems that we have here is the curative nature of our medical system. If we had a more preventive system, we'd have a lower spend. That's been a big push within the higher education teaching towards emphasizing preventive care to lower costs. The American populace isn't "into" a preventive lifestyle. We are into a consumption lifestyle and putting off the responsible actions (and as much responsibility for the consequences as possible) for later and onto others. Enabling further responsibility shifting is what PPACA does.
And, may I also direct your attention to your Constitution requiring an amendment to give your Federal Government Constitutional authority to institute NHI? I have said well before I ever registered with CM that if an amendment to the Constitution giving the Federal Government uthority over health care was passed, I'd have no basis for my argument against UHC.
With the focus on consumption in the US, I still doubt UHC would have the same fiscal benefits that are realized elsewhere, and I still believe, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Government is the biggest inhibitor of solid Market solutions because of it's corruption to Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Medicine.
Ya know a lot of folks pick on this guy's posts but, he's pretty much on the money.
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