Why be against universal healthcare?

[Reverend Rick]

If we are going to go for socialised medicine, then it should be a single payer system and everyone should be covered. The insurance companies will make Obama care a system where everyone is not covered and the costs will bankrupt us all!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If we are going to go for socialised medicine, then it should be a single payer system and everyone should be covered. The insurance companies will make Obama care a system where everyone is not covered and the costs will bankrupt us all!

Was that supposed to be an answer to my question?

BTW: I agree with you that Obamacare is a bass-ackward way of instituting universal health care. I think it would make much more sense to nationalize health insurance across the board. IMO, the system they came up with is pretty much the worst system I can think of except for the one it's replacing.

 

[esmith]

So, I haven't heard any comment on the German system of health care. It is considered "universal health care". Yet I don't believe that some that support the idea of universal health care would care for it.

International Health Systems: Issue Modules, Germany - KaiserEDU.org, Health Policy Education from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

 

[Alceste]

If we are going to go for socialised medicine, then it should be a single payer system and everyone should be covered. The insurance companies will make Obama care a system where everyone is not covered and the costs will bankrupt us all!

Obamacare isn't really relevant to a discussion of universal health care. There's no "sort of" universal, or "toward" universality. If one single citizen of your country anywhere does not have unlimited access to medically necessary health care free at the point of service, your system is not universal.

What the AHCA does is regulate for profit health care ever so slightly, tap new revenue for health care funding and expand public health care services a teensy bit. That's it. Apart from that, it's exactly the same as what you already had.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I asked you a question before: how often do you think this sort of thing happens? Do you think it's reflective of the overall effect of universal health care?

I think it wil be a free for all until the dust settles. There is a pent up demand for people needing to be seen.

 

[Alceste]

So, I haven't heard any comment on the German system of health care. It is considered "universal health care". Yet I don't believe that some that support the idea of universal health care would care for it.

International Health Systems: Issue Modules, Germany - KaiserEDU.org, Health Policy Education from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

It's fine. I don't see the need for the involvement of private insurers - seems like a waste of funds - but as long as everyone has access to medically necessary health care free at the point of service the funding details can be anything, really.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Obamacare isn't really relevant to a discussion of universal health care. There's no "sort of" universal, or "toward" universality. If one single citizen of your country anywhere does not have unlimited access to medically necessary health care free at the point of service, your system is not universal.

What the AHCA does is regulate for profit health care ever so slightly, tap new revenue for health care funding and expand public health care services a teensy bit. That's it. Apart from that, it's exactly the same as what you already had.

Alceste, the best doctors will not be able to keep their practice open for what the government is willing to pay. I will admit you have a much better system than we do and I will also bet that your doctors live in smaller homes than our doctors do down here.

I would much rather have your system than the one we are about to start.

 

[Alceste]

Alceste, the best doctors will not be able to keep their practice open for what the government is willing to pay. I will admit you have a much better system than we do and I will also bet that your doctors live in smaller homes than our doctors do down here.

I would much rather have your system than the one we are about to start.

You're not starting a new system. Your old system has been tweaked every so slightly to cover more people.

Doctors in Canada make good money, relative to other Canadians. We're not all that into big houses. Harder to heat!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think it wil be a free for all until the dust settles. There is a pent up demand for people needing to be seen.

Can you put a number on this "pent up demand"? Exactly how many frivolous (in your view) medical procedures would happen per year under universal health care that aren't happening now?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The rich do not have enough money to pay for all of this if you take every penny they have!

Who said the rich should have to pay for all of it?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Alceste, the best doctors will not be able to keep their practice open for what the government is willing to pay. I will admit you have a much better system than we do and I will also bet that your doctors live in smaller homes than our doctors do down here.

I would much rather have your system than the one we are about to start.

Let's find out exactly what the price difference would be. Here are the rates for a couple of family doctor services under my province's public health insurance plan and a description of the service provided:

Special family and general practice consultation
This service is a consultation rendered by a GP/FP physician who provides all the elements
of a consultation and spends a minimum of fifty (50) minutes of direct contact with the patient
exclusive of time spent rendering any other separately billable intervention to the patient.
A911 Special family and general practice consultation ...................... 144.75

Comprehensive family and general practice consultation
This service is a consultation rendered by a GP/FP physician who provides all the elements
of a consultation and spends a minimum of seventy-five (75) minutes of direct contact with
the patient exclusive of time spent rendering any other separately billable intervention to the
patient.
A912 Comprehensive family and general practice consultation......... 217.15

Source: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/providers/program/ohip/sob/physserv/a_consul.pdf

Both of these work out to an hourly rate of $173.70. How much does a private insurer pay for an hour of a family doctor's time where you live?

 

[MoonWater]

wow you guys get 50 minutes when you see the doctor? I get a lousy 15 minutes, and half of that is spent with a nurse who takes my vitals and writes down my symptoms only for me to spend another 5 minutes giving the same list to my doctor when she comes in. You'd think they would exchange notes or something on the way in.

 

[MoonWater]

I find it funny that you people are coming up with arguments against universal healthcare that directly contradict what actual people from countries with actual universal healthcare have already told you about the way it actually works. Are you guys just refusing to listen? Or what about the examples I gave from my own life about how private insurance has actually limited my available options whereas universal care would have given me greater freedom?

universal care has nothing to do with controlling who gets treatment and everything to do with making sure everyone gets treatment. With private insurance there are already limits on how much treatment is covered. With universal care those limits would be removed. You guys are seeing problems in universal care that in truth only exist in our current private system and, as has been told to you by people from countries with universal care, are problems that would be solved BY universal care, not created by them.

Why do you guys continue to spout arguments that directly contradict what people with real experience with universal care have been telling you? It's like refusing to believe a glass of water is safe to drink despite the fact it's been thoroughly tested and proven to be not only safe but better for you than the muddy glass of water you are currently drinking.

so, is anyone going to answer my question?

 

[Reverend Rick]

Can you put a number on this "pent up demand"? Exactly how many frivolous (in your view) medical procedures would happen per year under universal health care that aren't happening now?

It would just be a guess but I would say 25%.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

wow you guys get 50 minutes when you see the doctor? I get a lousy 15 minutes, and half of that is spent with a nurse who takes my vitals and writes down my symptoms only for me to spend another 5 minutes giving the same list to my doctor when she comes in. You'd think they would exchange notes or something on the way in.

There's a lower code for a consultation with no time minimum, but since I was interested in comparing hourly rates, I didn't quote it.

I believe that the fee for a 15 minute general consultation by a family doctor would be $77.20.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It would just be a guess but I would say 25%.

I meant an actual number of procedures... like how many times per year do you think that major operations are happening that you consider wasteful. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

 

[MoonWater]

There's a lower code for a consultation with no time minimum, but since I was interested in comparing hourly rates, I didn't quote it.

I believe that the fee for a 15 minute general consultation by a family doctor would be $77.20.

ah, ok

 

[Copernicus]

Obamacare expands the limited public health care services the us provides, like medicare for the poor, including more people. It also regulates some of the most outrageous but common vulture policies by insurance companies, like dropping customers who get sick.

Just a technical note here. "Medicare for the poor" is Medicaid. We reserve the term Medicare for the insurance program that I pay a monthly premium and annual deductible fee to now. I only make this point here, because so many people in the US have this mistaken impression that Medicare is a welfare benefit that goes to freeloading old codgers and comes out of the general tax revenues. Young whippersnappers hate it, because they mistakenly think they are paying all the bills. I paid into it for several decades until I recently stopped being a young whippersnapper. Now I pay premiums to stay in it, and there are penalties if you think you can get away with not paying them until you actually get sick. And there is even some means testing that applies.

 

[Copernicus]

Psychologist? Dentist? Physiotherapist? Cardiovascular surgery? Transplants? Gastric bypass surgery? Plastic surgery?

Under Obamacare (which stopped being a pejorative as more people began to realize what was in it), Dental is not covered. Nor is elective surgery. The rest of it depends on the policy, because Obamacare pretty much leaves it up to the insurer what they want to cover. There are certain minimum standards, but competition will drive insurers to put sweeteners in (at least, in principle). The incentive is still to maximize profits, but insurers will no longer be free to engage in the Catch-22 game of dumping folks who developed conditions that needed expensive care. In other words, you could get health insurance as long as you didn't get too sick. Then you would lose it, and your "pre-existing condition" would not be covered under a new policy, if you were lucky enough to find anyone else to insure you.

 

[Alceste]

Just a technical note here. "Medicare for the poor" is Medicaid. We reserve the term Medicare for the insurance program that I pay a monthly premium and annual deductible fee to now. I only make this point here, because so many people in the US have this mistaken impression that Medicare is a welfare benefit that goes to freeloading old codgers and comes out of the general tax revenues. Young whippersnappers hate it, because they mistakenly think they are paying all the bills. I paid into it for several decades until I recently stopped being a young whippersnapper. Now I pay premiums to stay in it, and there are penalties if you think you can get away with not paying them until you actually get sick. And there is even some means testing that applies.

Thanks for the clarification. It sounds complicated, to be honest. As a citizen of a non-US country, all I ever have to do to get the ball rolling is call the doctor and make an appointment.