Stealth Moose
Umbrella Elite
Originally posted by SJones91109
But nowhere in our discussion did I indicate that our system wasn't broken, simply asking you how YOU would fix it. I'm familiar with your charts but I guess the intent was a miscommunication on my part.As far as "health and wellness" goes, yea those countries have it. Everyone is a giant there, they're goddamn Viking descendants, and they're happy. I'm not too impressed with their hotels, their houses. It's not really about opulence, just what you and I would consider the bare essentials. I suppose we have been spoiled in this country but that goes towards my point of comparing different standards of living.
Which was essentially my point about how misleading your stats were. And I just don't know how we "emulate" the successful countries for 350 million plus Americans. I honestly have NO idea.
Couldn't you argue that it's punishing those who CAN afford it but don't necessarily need to go to the doctor very often, yet pay out the ass for those that do?
I've made no mention of socialized medicine until now, only saying Obamacare isn't going to work. If you want an argument on why, I can do that but you've seen to be doing quite well yourself. As for socialized medicine, I'm not sure if that's the future. I envision a future without 3rd parties, like insurance companies, where you can do business with just your doctor. You'll see the costs come back to what they're supposed to be, not inflated because the insurance company is going to fight at least 70% of the cost with the doctor's offices.
To clarify, you mentioned universal medical, which is what made me suspect you didn't approve of the system.
Second, I'm just going to post a paper I did on this last year instead of rewording the same arguments and wasting my time trying to prove a point further. Sometimes, I don't do myself any favors by talking too much when I already said the right thing before.
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As put forth by the World Health Organization and mirrored by numerous U.N. human rights treaties and regional treaties, human beings are entitled to a Right to Health. This definition means that the governments must "generate conditions in which everyone can be as healthy as possible" (1). Of all first-world countries, only the U.S. stands alone as being without government guided universal health care in place. With regards to how it approaches health care, the American government owes it to its people to put the Right to Health first instead of for-profit hospitals and private insurance companies.
Opinions against this movement in American society usually cite factors such as the cost of the sick being passed on to the healthy or exaggerate costs of health care as if it would cripple the government with increased spending. For the former, the concept of "healthy majority" suffering for the "sick minority" is misleading since at some point in our life, most Americans will develop a disease requiring treatment or require hospital care. Expensive ongoing treatment is required for heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and hypertension, each of which effects 8-11% of the U.S. population by itself; except for asthma, these same major conditions are related to obesity, which affects just over 30% of Americans, and those overweight but not yet obese account for 34.4% (2). This means that for every ten Americans, between three and six are at risk for multiple conditions at some point in their life by the virtue of weight alone. This ignores other conditions like stress or heredity. The CDC reported in 2010 that 36.8 for every 100 American citizens received outpatient hospital care that year, and 41.4 per 100 for emergency visits. Just under 8% of visits require stays lasting on average 4.9 days(2). In these cases here, it's more than a mere fraction of people benefitting from health care. Hospital costs alone can range in the thousands, bills that force an already struggling family to either give up and let it go to collections or fight for payment arrangements.
The second argument also falls short in the face of the evidence. "The U.S. spent 16 percent of its GDP on health care. This proportion was nearly double the OECD median (8.7%)and over 40 percent more than the country spending the second-largest share of GDP (France 11.2%)" (3). As it is, we lead the world in health care expenditure. Even more, the rate of growth is ahead as well. Against a democratic socialist country like Norway, which provides health care and other benefits for life to its citizens, our annual adjusted rate (of health care spending per capita) was 4.25 times theirs. This clearly shows that the money we're spending on current health care options are not saving us anything versus systems in place by all other first-world countries who typically enjoy lower costs across the board. The fact that removal of private insurance company fees, haggling, and out-of-pocket costs would only further save money often remains ignored.
The idea of universal health care benefits the U.S. greatly for two reasons: one, it follows the example of our comrades in post-industrial society in looking after the welfare of our citizens; and two, it works to eliminate a very real drain on the economy and promote happiness there as well. For the first, again the U.S. is the only first-world country without universal health care. Even Russia has adopted this method to deal with health costs. Evidence pointing to the current system being against the needs of the people is that it fails to put the U.S. above other nations in terms of overall health care. Despite being a post-industrial superpower, the WHO ranked the U.S. as " 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance" (4). The U.S. also has a life expectancy reflecting this, ranking 50th out of 212 in the CIA World Factbook (5). Secondly, in addition to evidence above that the current system is actually increasing costs to American citizens, there's the issue of productivity affected by illness and disease left untreated. While emergency rooms and clinics can offer on-the-spot care without turning away the uninsured, continuing medication and treatment can keep the sick in the workforce. Looking at the impact, "labor time lost due to health reasons represents lost economic output totaling $260 billion per year" (6). If even a fraction of that loss can be mitigated by improved health care and more options for the uninsured, the impact alone along with reduced costs for fees and out-of-pocket expenses would pay for itself!
In summation, Americans have a Right to Health and based on the evidence above, they have a right to expect their government to learn from the statistics, learn from the success of others and make the right choice. Privatized healthcare majority has only benefited those making the profit, not those receiving the care.
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Enjoy, etc.
