Our Great Helath Care System

[Dystopia]

I have no problems with a governmental healthcare system like medicare for everyone. If private insurance wants to do business, they can cater to those that can afford their price.

But having a market driven healthcare system is a failure and it is time to work with a different system that ensures a healthy country for everyone (depending on factors of health withstanding).

If you read what I mentioned about the possible outcome of having an universal healthcare system, you'll know that it isn't that simple. Your proposal could lead to a great injustice - Those who can't afford private, end up using public whether it's good or bad, while those who can will go to the best private hospital/clinics. We all know the best doctors work in private because they provide an above average service with few supply and the demand is higher, therefore they can have the luxury of charging how much they want, and considering private clinics can make lots of profit, many doctors will opt for working in private to make more money. Where I live doctors in public work simultaneously in private to make more money, since there have been salary cuts in public function.

[Minimalist]

Those who can't afford private, end up using public whether it's good or bad, while those who can will go to the best private hospital/clinics.

Um.... that's exactly what we have, now.

[Isun]

Exactly. And even though I am not an expert I have done some reading of several different health care systems such as the one in Germany, France, England, and Canada.



The best appears to be a combination of private and government.

they would be using the same doctors actually, not different ones. I am not recommending that hospitals be government run, what I am recommending is the insurance is covered through deductions from our payroll. Anything additional is on our own. Similar to France we can negotiate prices with the medical profession for services rendered.

[Dystopia]

Those who can't afford private, end up using public whether it's good or bad, while those who can will go to the best private hospital/clinics.

Um.... that's exactly what we have, now.

Aren't you required to pay your insurance to have healthcare?

If not, I don't see the difference between your system and ours. Everyone can go to a public hospital free of charge, it doesn't mean the efficiency of the health service will be the best. Of course there are exceptions, some public hospitals are very good

[Jenny A]

Problem with your proposition is that the market system of healthcare in the US has been a total failure. So a for profit health care system clearly doesn't work.

We don't have a private health care system in the U.S. We have an ugly hermaphrodite. Medicare and Medicade other government spending makes up a whooping 46% of medical spending the United States. But government involvement doesn't stop there. Oh no, we give tax incentives to companies to provide health insurance and require companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate health insurance and pay a proportion of the premium.

Worse, because of profit being the motivation it leads to insurance company's refusing to reimbursed covered expenses. They figure that most of those that they don't reimburse won't argue, and the few that will, doesn't cost as much as the profit earned by refusing to cover those that don't challenge the insurance company.

It happens, but mostly doctors do the suing in this case and they win. They want to get paid and they know the insured can't.

They will refuse to provide healthcare to anyone that has a pre existing health care issue.

You did see the Affordable Care Act go by right? It prohibits that.

I have no problems with a governmental healthcare system like medicare for everyone. If private insurance wants to do business, they can cater to those that can afford their price.

But having a market driven healthcare system is a failure and it is time to work with a different system that ensures a healthy country for everyone (depending on factors of health withstanding).

Again we don't really have free market health care now. And Medicare, Medicaid, and The VA don't do a great job. I wouldn't want to hand them the rest of our health care.

I repeat, for a system to work it must make patients responsible for enough of their own costs to make them wise shoppers of medical services. The current insurance/government paid system does not do that.

[Isun]

1) We most certainly do have a private health care system. The 50 employees is only recently and isn't a burden on the company. Nor did the government require any company to provide health care before. It was voluntary because they wanted to attract good employees.

Medicare is far cheaper than private healthcare and so is Medicaid.

2)It isn't the hospitals that don't get paid, it is the patient that doesn't get treated or ends up paying themselves.


3) We most certainly do have a market based healthcare system. It is the doctors and insurance company's that determine the price.

4) Bad idea. It is only in large numbers that we can influence price. If an individual was to go looking for insurance they would pay out the ears for it because they aren't able to scale prices by bringing in a large group. If we were actually shopping doctors for price then we would really be screwed because we wouldn't be able to negotiate lower prices as the insurance company's do.

[Jenny A]

The best appears to be a combination of private and government.

That's what we had. 46% government and another 40% mandated insurance. Now we have 46% government and 54% mandated insurance.

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1) We most certainly do have a private health care system. The 50 employees is only recently and isn't a burden on the company. Nor did the government require any company to provide health care before. It was voluntary because they wanted to attract good employees.

Medicare is far cheaper than private healthcare and so is Medicaid.

Indeed, because the government demands to be paid at a discount. That's why private payments are so high, to make the discount affordable to hospitals and doctors.

2)It isn't the hospitals that don't get paid, it is the patient that doesn't get treated or ends up paying themselves.

Emergency wards are required to treat whether they get paid or not.

3) We most certainly do have a market based healthcare system. It is the doctors and insurance company's that determine the price.

If the government foots 46% of the bill, how is that private? And the government is heavily involved in the price of that 46%.

4) Bad idea. It is only in large numbers that we can influence price. If an individual was to go looking for insurance they would pay out the ears for it because they aren't able to scale prices by bringing in a large group. If we were actually shopping doctors for price then we would really be screwed because we wouldn't be able to negotiate lower prices as the insurance company's do.

I don't want individuals to go shopping for insurance prices. I want them to go shopping for procedure prices.
[/quote]

There are two areas of health care not much covered by insurance where the patient has to pay more or less directly most of the time: dental care and eye care. Guess which areas don't have such rapidly rising prices?