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DesideriScuri -> RE: A question for Canadians, Brits and any other citizen of a country with nationalize health care (10/8/2013 5:40:44 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Apocalypso
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
If you are put in that pool, you are in that pool, regardless. Healthy people who are at little to no risk of needing insurance are being compelled to buy insurance they neither want, not likely need. That's the only way to pay for those who are high risk without charging super high premiums.
To repeat other people's point, why are you only proposing this approach for healthcare? Why should pacifists pay for the army? Why should bank robbers pay for the police?
Two points: National Defense is in the US Constitution.
And, bank robbers have no way of not paying for police. Even though they are opposed to the efforts of the police, they are still gaining protection (like, from other robbers) and their property values are also higher when there is less crime in the area.
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Insurance lessens the cost to the individual, but not to the aggregate. The cost of individual procedures and services will not, generally, be effected. The only way to reduce health care spending, then, would be to reduce the number of procedures/services, or reduce the number of high cost procedures/services.
Or to take the private sector out of it entirely, so you don't have to make a profit, just make enough money to break even. Because, self-evidently, doing things like paying dividends to shareholders is another cost.
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So much for the Affordable Care Act, eh?
Ok, the NHS is funded out of general taxation (sales tax, corporate tax etc.), not just income tax. So it's impossible to work out exactly how much the average person pays in tax to support it.
However, per capita spending on the NHS (which covers 100% of the population) works out at about $3,200 per capita. The US government spends around $3,700 per capita, covering less than a third of the population.
The US right needs to be more honest in this debate. Have the courage of your convictions and say that you prefer healthcare to be less efficient, even just looking at the economics of the situation, for ideological reasons.
Cost of individual services and procedures is ridiculous here. The US Government is spending about 10%GDP already for the military, the elderly (Medicare) and for low income (Medicaid, SCHIP). The elderly, generally, comprise that segment of the population that has the greatest expenditures, so it's not exactly surprising that those costs are higher. Cutting Medicare reimbursement costs is a political no-go already. Doctors would have to limit the number of Medicare patients they see so they can see other patients to stay profitable.
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In the UK, there are NHS hospitals and there are private hospitals. NHS hospitals, essentially, are government owned, operated, and the staff is paid a salary (I didn't know that before). So, the NHS is both provider and payer.
It's worth noting that private hospitals are also paid for in part by the taxpayer, because the training of their staff is at state-funded universities. Personally, I think we should massively raise their tax bill in recognition of that. But I'm a radical.quote:
Individuals are the consumers. The insurance company isn't getting the service/procedure. The individual is. The insurance is just a way to reduce the cost to the individual by spreading it out across a larger number of people.
As the figures I've quoted show, it's not doing a great job at reducing individual cost.
It does reduce the cost to the individual because the cost is spread out across the risk pool. It does not lower the actual costs of the procedures, though. Switching over to single payer isn't going to magically slash costs, either. The US will likely have higher health care spending than anywhere else until the end of days. And, our lifestyles here will likely continue to make our health care metrics "worse" than other countries, too.
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