Healthcare for Profit

[1001001]

There's a lot of stuff that should be non-profit, healthcare being one of them. There are non-profit providers (I work for one). People complain that insurance premiums go up without ever addressing the fact that costs go up. Profiteering in healthcare (for example, Big Pharma) is indeed repellant to me.

 

[Stoo]

Another thing, as a Libertarian friend of mine likes to remind me, is once the government controls your health care, they control YOU.

meaningless rhetoric

 

[Australis]

Another thing, as a Libertarian friend of mine likes to remind me, is once the government controls your health care, they control YOU.

Actually... no. The Govt doesn't control me. Unless you mean the time I turn up for my appointments. Also, libertarian looks good on paper, mostly. IRL though...

 

[J.T.B.]

The argument for "free market" health care in the US has historically been that anything involving the government will inevitably become bloated, bureaucratic and inefficient. The unfettered market, it is said, will through competition bring efficiencies that benefit everyone, as if medical care is like any other consumer product.

What these ideas tend to ignore is that the market forces that work on most products don't apply to health care. With a regular product, the consumer can decide "I can live without it at that price" and walk away, while obviously the sick person doesn't have the same option, they may literally not be able to live without care. And on the supplier side, the free market would not give treatment the consumer couldn't afford. But the reality is, health care providers are never going to make the decision to let a sick person go untreated and maybe die.

So people are still going to get sick and are still going to be treated. The question is, what is the most efficient and effective way to deal with those costs? The answer is already known: big pools, the bigger the better. And more proactive preventive coverage, so treatment is not started when it has become an emergency situation.

No, the greedy bastards are the ones advocating restricting Healthcare so they can pay even
less taxes on their already massive wealth.

I think that hits on a large part of the resistance to UHC in the US: The wealthiest fear it will lead to them having to pay more taxes. To that end, resistance to federal involvement in health care has generally painted it as "handouts," benefiting people who are not worthy etc. But the US pays more for health care and gets worse results than any other wealthy, industrialized nation. So the status quo pre-ACA doesn't seem to be a rational option.

I still hear people in the US tell anecdotes of the horrors of Canadian, British, Australian, you name it health care systems. And there is a question I always ask, and never get an answer: If those systems are so bad, why haven't they been voted out?

 

[MacLeod]

I still hear people in the US tell anecdotes of the horrors of Canadian, British, Australian, you name it health care systems. And there is a question I always ask, and never get an answer: If those systems are so bad, why haven't they been voted out?

Perhaps that despite for all their flaws they are better than the US system. Or perhaps those countries have a greater sense of community than indivualism (or more accuratly when it best to act in the interests of the wider community and when you need to be a bit more selfish).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Single-payer is about the only way you get real cost control.

Countries with universal/single-payer healthcare have better outcomes, healthier people, and lower costs than the US. I think that speaks for itself.

 

[UncleRogi]

Perhaps that despite for all their flaws they are better than the US system. Or perhaps those countries have a greater sense of community than indivualism (or more accuratly when it best to act in the interests of the wider community and when you need to be a bit more selfish).

This. My intent was to see what arguments would be offered up to defend healthcare deprivation
as a moral position. By folk who will never worry about it.

America holds itself up as a paragon of virtue; a defender of all. I'm a proud American, and have served
in The Army, and benefit from a version of UHC.

But when I see our politicians throw poor folk under the bus and call it the 'Right Thing',
THAT is not what I signed up for with my life. I'm of the opinion that military service
should be mandatory here, if only in a National Guard sense (Nasty Girls in Army Parlance ).
It's GREAT to see all get behind the military, no matter the political situation.

Why is it that taking care of poor, downtrodden, and sick people should become a fiscal consideration
instead of a Duty? ESPECIALLY in a moral sense, as those same folk consider this a Christian
Nation? I think this argument defeats itself, as posited in the fourth post of the thread.

You Folk bolster my faith in America, mostly because a bunch of you are not, except in
your sense of equality. Many Thanks for your views and opinions.

Now, for my NEXT plan, a raid on Fort Knox...
(and there are some reading thinking just that...)

Edit: for those that don't know, the Declaration and Constitution are kept at
Fort Knox, as well as an original copy of the Magna Carta. Foes of America want in that
Place, and some would consider folk accepting social medicine as enemies.

NO ONE without authorization even gets NEAR the fence. Except, of course, one known as
James T. Kirk. (Call him Jim...)

 

[Australis]

And James Bond...

 

[UncleRogi]

And James Bond...

Well, that goes without saying.

Shhhh. The bartender is suspicious...

I said stirred....

 

[Kor]

I once took a five-minute ambulance ride. I think I paid "only" a hundred bucks after my insurance covered the other thousands.

Kor

 

[Snaploud]

I once took a five-minute ambulance ride. I think I paid "only" a hundred bucks after my insurance covered the other thousands.

This is one of the weirdest aspects of our healthcare system. Basically, the insurance companies make deals with healthcare providers for services, and the negotiators realized that it would look good if it appeared that these insurance carriers were getting amazing deals on healthcare services. They created artificial, ridiculously high list prices and then only made the insurance carriers pay a small fraction of that amount.

The real problem comes with how the uninsured are treated. Those people actually pay the ridiculous list prices.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Where I live, my ambulance ride was free. Levy systems are a good thing.

 

[Amaris]

Healthcare is a right, and the for-profit system has millions of ruined lives on its blood stained hands.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

This is one of the weirdest aspects of our healthcare system. Basically, the insurance companies make deals with healthcare providers for services, and the negotiators realized that it would look good if it appeared that these insurance carriers were getting amazing deals on healthcare services. They created artificial, ridiculously high list prices and then only made the insurance carriers pay a small fraction of that amount.

The real problem comes with how the uninsured are treated. Those people actually pay the ridiculous list prices.

Yup. The pricing of healthcare services and medications in this country is a sick joke. Not to mention, companies have been caught red-handed illegally manipulating prices.

Medicare prices are kept manageable because the government is allowed to set rates for those--except for medications. Result: drug prices are through the roof, compared with other medical services.

(Not to say other healthcare services are affordable, but pricing is genuinely out of control when it comes to drugs.)

 

[thestrangequark]

There is no moral justification for for-profit healthcare. I see a lot of ignorance, misinformation, and cognitive bias as a few people in here try to argue one, but none exists.

 

[UncleRogi]

I also wonder how cutting subsidies and making premiums spike is a good thing
that "Makes America Great Again."

 

[MacLeod]

It could be down to a lack of empathy.

 

[Relayer1]

If you provide healthcare and make a profit, the profit you are keeping is money that you could be putting into more healthcare...

 

[Timewalker]

I still hear people in the US tell anecdotes of the horrors of Canadian, British, Australian, you name it health care systems. And there is a question I always ask, and never get an answer: If those systems are so bad, why haven't they been voted out?

What horror stories do they say about Canada?

I can walk into any clinic or doctor's office or emergency room in my province and expect to not have to pay a nickel, unless I'm prescribed some medication that isn't covered. And even then I'll work with my pharmacist to see if there are other options that will work that are either more affordable.

I've seen specialists a few times over the years, and there was no cost. It did involve a wait of several weeks, and there was a surgery that was postponed by a month or so. Yes, those wait times increased my pain and anxiety, but at least I wasn't out on the street for lacking the money to pay for them.

It's the wait lists that most people cite when they talk about the problems in Canada. Some people have died on wait lists, if they lacked the money to just go to a private clinic or get treated out of the country. Even our assisted-dying legislation has resulted in some people going out of country... since the federal government wrote into the legislation that the patient's death must be "reaasonably foreseeable" (meaning within a month or so), when the truth is that some incurable conditions can force a person to suffer for years. Waiting for doctors and lawyers and judges to argue things out (yes, some people have gone to court here to petition to be allowed to die with the help of a medical professional)...

Still, I think that any government who tried to take away our health care system would find a country-wide revolution on its hands.

 

[Sgt_G]

If you provide healthcare and make a profit, the profit you are keeping is money that you could be putting into more healthcare...

Food is a basic necessity, too. Are you saying that restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers / ranchers shouldn't be allowed to make a profit selling food??????? No?? Well, it's the same principle.

Look, private companies are in business to make money. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors to turn a profit. They do so by selling a product or providing a service at a reasonable price. No company can afford to sell health insurance without investors buying into the company on the stock market, and nobody will invest if they don't get a fair return on their money.

And as I said before, the problem isn't health insurance, but rather the run-away costs of health care itself: what the doctors and hospitals charge. Part of that cost is due to the price of malpractice insurance, which is driven up by stupid juries awarding obscene amounts for frivolous lawsuits. If you truly want to "fix health care", you have to address the entire system. Forcing heavy-handed regulations on the insurance side of the equation doesn't deal with the root cause of the problem.