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THUNDERDOME- Don't Enter If YOU Are a Pussy or an Idiot: The U.S. Should Go To A Single-Payer, Everyone Gets Medical Care, System, PERIOD
invite response
2017 May 5, 9:05pm 3,142 views 50 comments
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RealEstateIsBetterThanStocks
2017 May 8, 9:25pm
i fail to see the connection from "Medical Care Complex is ripping everyone off" to "therefore, you should pay for some losers' medical bills."
RealEstateIsBetterThanStocks says
i fail to see the connection from "Medical Care Complex is ripping everyone off" to "therefore, you should pay for some losers' medical bills."
Simple. Some folks (like the Jesus lover above) would rather have the Med. Complex ripping them and everyone off, than pay a dollar for somebody else's health care.
If the government steps in and sets prices across the board then it's not a free market.
It's not a free market if we have drug patents and licenses that limit the number of doctors and clinics. The free market went out the window a long time ago.
I didn't say there was a free market. I said free market advocates have painted themselves in a corner. Read the whole post next time.
Dan8267
2017 May 8, 10:01pm
Sorry for not being a expert on goat anuses like you, piggy. At least I know how to recharge #rechargableBatteriesDumbass so to keep electronics working.
and allow outsourcing of medical care to countries that can do the same thing at a fraction of the cost.
We have that now, it's called medical tourism. Considering only something like 20% of Americans even have a passport and there are only about 11 million people a year that go overseas it's not going to be a big option. Very few Americans go abroad.
The down side is that in most of these countries if it goes bad you don't have any legal recourse. It's strictly buyer beware. You can get very good care, but you need to do your homework.
FortWayne
2017 May 9, 7:10am
If people are free to screw up their health consciously, others shouldn't be responsible. Bad outcomes are the only real deterrent to unhealthy choices.
Those who smoke, drink too much, eat garbage would be examples, but there is no practical way to exclude them from healthcare.
What might work is tax the hell out of cigarettes, alcohol, and fattening food, and use that tax towards healthcare. So irresponsible really end up paying for their stupidity.
I suppose that would be a good free market solution that would work as a deterrent. But you know how it is, idea might be great but somehow the markets change and twist it somehow in an unpredictable ways. I wonder how this one would work out.
Strategist
2017 May 9, 7:33am
and allow outsourcing of medical care to countries that can do the same thing at a fraction of the cost.
We have that now, it's called medical tourism. Considering only something like 20% of Americans even have a passport and there are only about 11 million people a year that go overseas it's not going to be a big option. Very few Americans go abroad.
The down side is that in most of these countries if it goes bad you don't have any legal recourse. It's strictly buyer beware. You can get very good care, but you need to do your homework.
We need our insurance companies to allow medical tourism. Follow up care can always be done in the US.
e.g. I had a torn meniscus last year. The total cost was an astounding $15,000 + for the 15 minute surgery. My share was $3,000. My insurance, Aetna PPO should just contract with hospitals in Thailand, Singapore and India where the total cost including airfare would be about $3,000.
Prescription medicine in India costs just 2% of what it costs in the US for the same damn thing. Any way you look at it, our healthcare costs for whatever reason are out of control. We need a drastic change.
We need our insurance companies to allow medical tourism. Follow up care can always be done in the US.
A number of them do. Did you ask? Skip India/Thailand and go for Malaysia. Prince Court Medical Center Kuala Lumpur is ranked the number one hospital for “patients without borders†by the Medical Travel Quality Alliance. Costa RIca is a good choice if you don't want to hump half way around the world, Plus it's an awesome place that I've spent considerable time exploring. If I weren't a very serious skier/boarder I'd really consider living there.
For a brief period you could do medical tourism in NZ until the government figured out the public system would end up backstopping the private system without being paid for it if anything went wrong.
Health care costs are out of control for many reasons but drastic change isn't going to happen. It's just going to get worse and worse.
"If we don't have drug patents, no company will bother to develop new drugs"
Of course they would. Companies develop new products all the time without getting patents.
Tenpoundbass
2017 May 9, 12:06pm
At the end of the day any plan called "Single Payer" or any plan that will eventually evolve into a "Single Payer"
Simply means you are the single person responsible for paying the out of pocket, the deductibles, the doctor visits and the bulk of any medical work done.
The Liberals and Republicans have been delivering us a Single Payer plan for year, you're just too stupid to ask the right question.
It's called "Government Healthcare" you dickweeds, get used to dismal failure until you can learn what to ask for.
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The U.S. spends twice as much as the next-nearest expensive nation on medical care, yet has more people uninsured as a % of population, MUCH HIGHER doctor visit costs, medication, hospital charges, surgical costs, diagnostic costs, treatment costs EVERYTHING etc. costs (37% to 212% higher).
This is because medical care DOES NOT WORK THE WAY MOST INDUSTRIES DO, whereby TECHNOLOGY TYPICALLY DRIVES DOWN COSTS.
Regarding medical care, technology DRIVES UP COSTS, and in the case of medical innovation, whether diagnostic, pharmaceutical, surgical, immunotherapy, etc., Americans pay for breakthrough technologies that are then stolen, or at least, borrowed (at a much lower cost), y consumers in other nations.
Not only that, but it's certifiably true that a single-payer system whereby the government has negotiating power for 320 million Americans will give the government massive leverage it does not now have (Medicare is a fraction of 320 million, and Medicare still has massive leverage negotiating prices), is the only way to put downward pressure on out-of-control and oligopolostic pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, doctors, hospitals (i.e. Insurance companies, which now own most hospitals and doctors groups), etc.
There is a reason we have an abhorrent system of incredibly expensive, inefficient, and impossible-to-understand medical'care in the U.S., and it's because there's no massive single buyer as in France, Australia, Italy, Japan, etc., etc.
We have 37,000 FUCKING BILLING CODES FOR MEDICAL SERVICES RENDERED!!! IT'S FUCKING INSANE!!! THE INSANE HAVE DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENTED THE SYSTEM BECAUSE THEY WERE HIRED TO BY THE MEDICAL CARE COMPLEX BECAUSE IT CREATES INEFFICIENCIES AND PURE, INSANE PROFIT!!!
The pharmaceutical companies, medical device makers, doctors (particularly specialists), insurance companies, etc., lobby and balkanize and fragment and confuse the entire system, to enrich themselves in ways and by margins not deemed rational or in the public's interest in other advanced, developed, civilized, rational nations.
We're fucked in the U.S. six ways to Sunday because the health care lobby is giant, out-of-control, all-powerful, greedy fucking ass collusory entity that ensures monopoly-like profits and has no real cost-pressures not reasons to modernize and get efficient in the ways HAT OTHER INDUSTRIES ARE FORCED TO.