Social Security/Medicare for All

[esmith]

Because that hasn't worked well. The contracts are byzantine, and full of exclusionary clauses. Consumers end up buying overpriced, junk insurance.
Moreover, unregulated insurance adds to hospital costs, requiring whole departments to negotiate the maze. They also interfere with care, since Drs have to negotiate with insurance companies over what treatments will be paid for, rather than the physician prescribing the optimum treatment.

There are considerably more issues that control the cost of health care here, but it seems the knee-jerk reaction is to listen to the piped pipers of the far left idiots.

 

[metis]

With all due respect, I don’t think the richest, most powerful country in the world needs advice from the likes of Italy.

How about Canada, Australia, the UK, France, etc., each of which pay less per capita that we do and with better outcomes than we have? Our for-profit health-care system is financially killing us, so the status quo is increasingly less acceptable..

 

[Valjean]

Don't care to answer the questions?

I'm not sure what you're getting at, here. You're criticizing the Medicare system, but what does that have to do with the various policies being proposed?

So I suggest you move to a country where an entity controls all prices, because hopefully what you seem to want will never be accepted here (at least in my lifetime).

Are you not aware that all the other developed countries have better, cheaper and simpler healthcare systems than the US?

Unregulated businesses of all kinds have a terrible track record of exploitation. Without some 'entity' regulating price and quality, business has a history of maximizing profits and minimizing costs.
The American healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are concerned with healthcare and public welfare only inasmuch as they can make a buck on it. They are for-profit businesses whose prime directive is to keep stock returns high.

 

[Valjean]

There are considerably more issues that control the cost of health care here, but it seems the knee-jerk reaction is to listen to the piped pipers of the far left idiots.

What is this "far left?" What you're calling far left was mainstream Republican forty years ago, and is center right even today in the rest of the developed world.

What "far left" policies are you calling idiotic? The reasons behind high healthcare costs in the US are well known to all but the American Right, as are numerous, tried-and-true solutions. The only knee-jerk reactions are on the simplistic, uninformed Right.
The whole world is looking at the American healthcare debate and scratching their heads in astonishment.

 

[esmith]

What is this "far left?" What you're calling far left was mainstream Republican forty years ago, and is center right even today in the rest of the developed world.

What "far left" policies are you calling idiotic? The reasons behind high healthcare costs in the US are well known to all but the American Right, as are numerous, tried-and-true solutions. The only knee-jerk reactions are on the simplistic, uninformed Right.
The whole world is looking at the American healthcare debate and scratching their heads in astonishment.

I see kites are now on sale.

 

[metis]

I see kites are now on sale.

With all the hot air from Trump, they should do really well this year.

 

[Shaul]

How about Canada, Australia, the UK, France, etc., each of which pay less per capita that we do and with better outcomes than we have? Our for-profit health-care system is financially killing us, so the status quo is increasingly less acceptable..

Actually the U.S. already spends more public and compulsory funds on healthcare than any of those countries. If spending public funds on healthcare was the determining factor the U.S. would be ahead. The reason Americans spend more on healthcare is not just because we need to, it is because we can spend more, because we are wealthier. We also have more elective procedures and larger refugee and poor immigrants, which drive up spending.

Also you didn’t bother to mention all of the other countries which have nationalized healthcare yet have far worse health figures. That’s called cherry picking your data.

So your post was a big red herring.

 

[PureX]

So I suggest you move to a country where an entity controls all prices, because hopefully what you seem to want will never be accepted here (at least in my lifetime).

Sad, though, that profits to wealthy insurance, hospital, and drug conglomerates are so much more important in the U.S. than the health of U.S. citizens, and that there are so many citizens in the U.S. who so despise their fellow citizens that they think this is alright.

 

[PureX]

Health care CEO pay tops a billion dollars in 2018 ... LINK

 

[metis]

Actually the U.S. already spends more public and compulsory funds on healthcare than any of those countries. If spending public funds on healthcare was the determining factor the U.S. would be ahead. The reason Americans spend more on healthcare is not just because we need to, it is because we can spend more, because we are wealthier.

This has been studied and reported numerous times, and where most of the costs that exceed normalcy is because we are the sole country with a for-profit health-care-delivery system. That's the reality. Who do you think ultimately pays for all those t.v. commercials and exorbitant CEO salaries and investor's profits?

Also you didn’t bother to mention all of the other countries which have nationalized healthcare yet have far worse health figures. That’s called cherry picking your data.

So your post was a big red herring.

I intentionally used westernized industrial counties that have a closer equivalency economically to us, thus I "cherry-picked" them for that reason and that reason alone, thus not for any "red herring".

And your use of Italy to display is not only not much of an equivalent to us but also misses the point that at least everyone in Italy is covered. It's not the best system by any stretch of the imagination, but at least even the poor can get basic coverage. The last time we were there (my wife was born and raised there), we actually did go to one of the hospitals (in Trapani), and it's a bit "rustic", no doubt, but at least no one goes bankrupt on medical services.