How would Universal Health Care help the economy?

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Bardockins, you misunderstood what I meant by expenditure, expenditure figures take into account both private and public expenditure and private expenditure in the US per capita alone is still greater than the OECD average for total expenditure per capita.
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/44/39092204.pdf

So neither the private or public healthcare sector in the US seems to be effectively utilizing the level of expenditure; when something like 50 million Americans don't have proper access to healthcare. Many other developed countries are spending less per capita in total, than either the public or private expenditure in the US, and apparently according to WHO and the Commonwealth Fund achieving better results. Less doctors, nurses and hospital beds per capita, lower gains in life expectancy and drops in infant mortality.

I guess I must be misunderstanding what you are trying to say. As stated before, I am aware of the problems the (unfree) US Health Care has. I am aware that the public sector is one of the top spenders on Health Care per head already, I didn't know how the private compares to that, but I can imagine that they as well pay more than most European governments. But, that's also what I have said, I am of the opinion that a National Health Care like in Britain or a semi Health Care system like we have it in Germany (though, really, also pretty shit) would be a strong improvement for the United States, which have a idiotic para-communist corporate system. I, personally, am of the opinion that a free market without government interference whatrsoever would be quite able to provide much better health care on average than a National Health Care system, but as for the US we are on the same page, it would be an improvement, though likely headed for collapse, like the European versions are.

Same to DK. I agree with what you said. I am not speaking out for the US system. No one in their right mind should.

K, so, I found one of the solutions to our healthcare problems:

http://gizmodo.com/5450150/in-early-tests-99-wii-balance-board-outperforms-17885-medical-rig

Another day, another story about some cheap, plastic Wii motion control accessory finding an application outside of gaming. In this case, it's the balance board, and not only is this device helping stroke victims recover, it's saving them money, too.

In fact, doctors at the University of Melbourne found that the balance board, normally used for pseudo Yoga or navigating Mii's down a virtual ski slope, was so sensitive it could very well replace traditional laboratory-grade "force platforms" doctors use to assess a patient's balance.

When doctors disassembled the board, they found the accelerometers and strain gauges to be of "excellent" quality. "I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up," said lead researcher Ross Clark, in an interview with New Scientist.

Even better, Clark's team has already published a paper that verifies the Wii balance board is "clinically comparable" to the nearly $18,000 lab force platform. That's great news for many smaller physio clinics that would otherwise be unable to afford the traditional rig.

So, apparently, some medical equipment is way over-priced.

I heard about a similar situation with this bone density test machine thing. The new method/machine cost like $300, and the old method/machine cost over $15,000. They found the new method and machine to be just as effective, but the manufacturers pushed really hard to keep the old machine cause it made them tons of money and going to the new way would cost a lot, or create competition. So what did the old manufacturers do? They tried to discredit the new method/machine over and over again, despite multiple, clear, empirical studies showing that the old way was a waste of money.

Now, I heard somewhere that the medical equipment was one of the high costs of healthcare. I'm not implying or saying that the above 2 examples prove that it's a bunch of ridiculously overpriced machines, but I am saying that there are probably lots and lots of examples like the 2 above, of stupid machines. No one knows the wiser, either.

So, couple that (finding stupidly overpriced machines) with a cap on how much can be sued for in medicine, and we may have found over 5% medical cost problems.
awesome

If you are a free market, libertarian flat Earther, universal healthcare doesn't help the economy. The economy is faith and the invisible hand is god. In fact, there is a surplus in the labor market and there will always be one because 43% of US jobs can and should be outsourced. Therefore, the best way to save the economy, upon realizing that foreign markets are the way to go and the US truly is an inverted totalitarian plutonomy in which most consumers don't matter anyway, is to get rid of every single social program, all government and non-profit assistance and repeal EMTALA, and get rid of employer insurance. We need to kill as many poor people as possible to restore jobs and the economy so if doing that and lowering the minimum wage to $2.00 an hour doesn't do the job, then starting wars to kill as many people as possible and "accidentally launching neutron bombs at major cities will.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.-Benito Mussolini, 1935

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.-Franklin Roosevelt, 1936

Originally posted by KidRock
Edit: This is a thread on how it would affect the economy..and not about any moral issues.

For the Obama and Clinton supporters. Since the economy is in a shit storm how would implementing UHC actually do anything other then harm the economy? Could ending the war be the answer? South Korea isnt at war (well..technically I guess they are..), neither is Japan and the UK's economy shouldnt be taking too much of a strain from what they are doing over there..so I doubt thats the answer.

Any suggestions or ideas?

The UK healthcare system:
1. http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/03/08/UKCrisis/
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...uk.topstories3
"Labour's flagship health service reforms were in disarray last night, as the head of the NHS, Sir Nigel Crisp, quit in the face of increasing deficits which the government admitted would breach its forecast of ?200m... Estimates of the final deficit suggest it could rise to as high as ?800m."

"The current crisis...predicting that the year-end deficit for the NHS could run as high as $1.6 billion dollars."

South Korea
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1447690
"After 1996, Korean NHI began to develop significant deficits. From 1996 to the present, total health expenditures have exceeded total income... Although government continually raised the mandatory insurance premiums to make up for the deficit, many health policy experts predicted that increased governmental funding would not solve the problem."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=89626309
"The Japanese Health Ministry tightly controls the price of health care down to the smallest detail." "But 50 percent of hospitals are in financial deficit now."

It wont help the economy Kidrock, just further harm it. Now lets be happy it's resting in the same place Ted Kennedy is.

I'd rather have a bad economy with free healthcare than a good economy with useless, overpriced healthcare.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I'd rather have a bad economy with free healthcare than a good economy with useless, overpriced healthcare.

psh, chump change.

The main problem with US healthcare is the lack of a centralized insurance system and the almost complete absence of evidenced based medicine.

These two are the key and the lock.

The problem with the US system is that companies have a profit incentive to not actually provide you with service.

centralizaed insurance takes care of that part...they have nowhere to run.

I'm not familiar with "centralized insurance" as a term... do you mean government-run insurance? Because yes, that would take care of that particular problem.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I'd rather have a bad economy with free healthcare than a good economy with useless, overpriced healthcare.

What is free health care?

Originally posted by KidRock
What is free health care?

Originally posted by King Kandy
Healthcare that's guaranteed to me as part of the "service set" the government provides.

And how is that free if the government uses your money to pay for it?

Because even if someone can't pay, they still get it.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Because even if someone can't pay, they still get it.

But other people are paying for it.

I know. And that's a great thing.

So then it's not free healthcare at all.

And opressing the rights of others is not a great thing.

I hope Obama's new taxes encourage's tax evasion and off shore tax havens.

Massive spending + new tax evasion techniques = faster bankrupt America.

It's free for the people who need it to be free.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
If you are a free market, libertarian flat Earther, universal healthcare doesn't help the economy.

I'm not. On that "political spectrum" test I took from OU, it said I was 2 points into the libertarian portion (that's only negligible). I was actually almost dead center.

There's some things that I'm fairly libertarian on, on others that I'm not.

For example, I think a hybrid healthcare system, a la France, is best.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
The economy is faith and the invisible hand is god. In fact, there is a surplus in the labor market and there will always be one because 43% of US jobs can and should be outsourced. Therefore, the best way to save the economy, upon realizing that foreign markets are the way to go and the US truly is an inverted totalitarian plutonomy in which most consumers don't matter anyway, is to get rid of every single social program, all government and non-profit assistance and repeal EMTALA, and get rid of employer insurance. We need to kill as many poor people as possible to restore jobs and the economy so if doing that and lowering the minimum wage to $2.00 an hour doesn't do the job, then starting wars to kill as many people as possible and "accidentally launching neutron bombs at major cities will.

Went off on a tangent, there, didn't you?

Originally posted by Darth Jello
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938

Cool. WTF does this have to do with healthcare?

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.-Benito Mussolini, 1935

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.-Franklin Roosevelt, 1936

Cool.

Now, get off your soap box and talk about how absurdly high-priced some medical equipment is, or about health care in general.