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freedomdwarf1 -> RE: 20 yr olds Medical bill...viral of the day (1/3/2014 12:39:29 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
quote:
ORIGINAL: leonine
quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
I have seen no proof, and no one has been able to show any, that costs in the US will drop if we adopt a national system. That your costs are lower isn't proof that ours will drop, as your costs are lower because you've had lower cost inflation since inception. If you have proof otherwise, post it, and I'll take it into account. This is not the first time I've asked P&R for this, either.
But why do you think we have that lower cost inflation? Blind luck? US doctors and nurses are not paid five times as much as European. Our drugs mostly come from the same few manufacturers. Where are those extra costs coming from, if not from the system?
So far as I can see, there are two causes. One is that the insurance system vastly multiplies the paper-pushers, form-fillers, fact-checkers and general administrative overhead, to an extent that makes nonsense of the theory that private enterprise does things more efficiently. (And that's not even considering the whole departments of sales and advertising that just don't exist in national healthcare.)
The other is that with so many loosely connected layers of negotiation between the consumer and supplier, there can be no meaningful competition or other forces to hold down costs. Everyone pads the bills and passes them on, and the final payers have no way to judge if they could have done better down the road. (Leaving aside the fact that nobody can shop around when their appendix is about to burst.)
Contrariwise, a Department of Health that pays the bills itself can deal face to face with hospitals and drug companies, with all the buying clout of being by far their biggest customer, and with a Minister of Health demanding the best possible deal.
I'd say the figures speak for themselves. What do you think they say?
Here's the thing, though, leonine: If we adopt the same or a similar system as the UK, and our costs don't drop, we'll be taxing ourselves upwards of 17% for "NI." That doesn't make anything "more affordable," it just shifts the costs. Maybe a few years down the road, our costs won't be spiraling at as high a rate, but we'll still be spending a lot more than anyone else. Assuming a medical inflation equal to the UK's, we'll still be spending 9%+ more per year than the UK.
I'm all for reducing our medical inflation, but I'm also looking at reducing costs in the short term, not just reducing costs compared to WTWB©. It's like the draconian spending cuts from the sequester that really were just reductions in spending increases, not actual spending cuts.
If we can solve the problem of why our costs are so much higher, and reduce them to more sane levels, I think we'll also find the methodology for reducing medical inflation, too.
If it ends up being only a nationalized health system can do that, well, then, I'll support a Constitutional Amendment allowing the Federal Government to nationalize the health care system.
We have been through this before desi.
The biggest problem with the US is the sheer fact that nobody will embrace anything new and go the whole 9 yards with it on a country-wide scale.
It's the same with gun control.
What we did, Australia did, and few other countries did (to a greater or lesser degree), was to roll out a new law applicable to everyone across the land. We did it at the flick of a pen - a new law put into place across the country, instantly.
What do the US do??
They apply a half-hearted piece of law in a tiny few districts which is guaranteed failure.
The same with Obummercare.
The numbers everywhere that social medicine is in place makes the US healthcare system look like the biggest rip-off jerks in the universe.
And Obama is making the same old mistake that all your other law makers do - only half-heartly roll out a small addition to the already money-grabbing insurance-based system you have there.
What you need to do is like everyone else did.
Whatever model you choose to use (UK/Canada/Aus/NZ etc), you need to enable it like a wall-to-wall fitted carpet.
That means completely obliterating insurance based healthcare and leave that as optional.
Drop the fines if you don't have any (because it's no longer applicable).
And apply the equivalent of NI across the board to pay for it; no exceptions.
Cap the jury awards to sensible level.
And you don't do this over a gradual roll-over period either.
You set a nearby date and that's when it all happens.. all of it, all at once, otherwise it's guaranteed to fail.
What you will find is almost immediate short-term reductions and long-term financial planning won't be such a crap-shoot with the numbers (negotiated and vastly reduced costs due to almost monopolistic coverage).
What we can't give you is absolute concrete proof because that can't happen (in your eyes) unless you see it for yourself and that ain't gonna happen until it gets implemented over there - properly.
If you shove a stick of dynamite under a can of beans and light the fuse, surely most (if not all) of them are gonna get splatted to the four winds when the dynamite goes off??
Same with social healthcare.
Everywhere it's used it has shown that the costs are driven down, quite dramatically.
And what's more, the cost to the end-user is a mere fraction of private healthcare premiums and there are no exclusions to worry about.
So.... if the US were to adopt one of the working models (or some hybrid), it'd be like lighting another stick of dynamite under a can of beans.
What's the chances of it doing the same thing as it's aways done everywhere else??
Pretty high I'd say.
What you are asking for as 'proof' is the evidence of the splattered can before the fuse is even lit.
Can't be done. All we can do is show the evidence of previous incarnations.
Essentially, you are asking for the impossible.
And a lot of how it turns out will be down to how it's implemented.
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