Can you give us a source showing that this has actually happened?

For instance people suffering from Hunters syndrome needs medicine that costs millions per person and year. Guess what? They still get that medicine here in Sweden with our universal health care even though as you say it's extremely expensive for very little health gain.

That's the good news, it already does. The Senate Health Care plan has better quality care than any HMO and it's a lot less expensive. Even better, Medicare's administrative costs are 2%! That's nearly 25% less than your average HMO.

Why would you be against HMOs competing with the government? Why not allow the market to do what it's meant to do: compete? Besides in other countries with universal health care, people can get private health care to supplement their government care.

To my knowledge, Obama's plan isn't to put the entire country on government health insurance. He's never said he wanted to shutdown the insurance industry. He only wants to give people the option of government health care if they cant' afford private insurance. The only mandate he's made is that all children under 18 are insured.

no, simply because i've never researched it, but past events in my life have me seriously questioning the viability of such a system and I believe my concerns are the same as millions of others who deal with major medical issues.

---------- Post added at 07:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:24 PM ----------

There is a huge difference between HMOs and PPOs, though i'm sure you are aware of this. I've seen HMOs decline MAJOR medical procedures when the prognosis isn't great. Would anyone envision or consider that we could see this type of health plan deny treatment for critical life threatening issues that aren't necessarily terminal?

HMO = Health Maintenance Organization, PPO = Preferred Provider Organization. PPOs are better and more expensive.
Ah, so because the market fails in HMOs, the government will thus fail. Why do HMOs fail? Money! The HMO has to keep an eye on profit, and an unprofitable HMO is likely to fail. All the government needs to do is break even. The government doesn't have stockholders to appease. Besides, we don't see these kinds of mistakes in other universal systems.

Well if this happens then the private industry could take up the slack and it would be no different than it is already....

HMOs therefore are generally for health maintenance, not for unexpected major issues. Is the government going to pay for yearly vaccinations, regular physical checkups, teeth cleanings, etc?

If the federal government can't run a whorehouse and sell whiskey at a profit (mustang ranch in 1990), what on earth makes anyone think they can handle health care on a monumentally large scale?

---------- Post added at 10:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 PM ----------

so I get to pay two insurance companies instead of one. yippee!!!!

It depends on who we use as a model. The most likely solution to implementing universal health care is to remove the "65 and older" from Medicare, at least at first. After that we'll probably play it by ear.
It would be a lot easier to be conservative or libertarian if this were true. But it's not. I can list on and on the incredible governmental success stories in the history of our nation, starting with the creation of the Constitution. Telephone infrastructure was done by the government. The transcontinental railroads were funded by loans from the government. The interstate highway program was all government. Electrification of rural areas. Human genome project. CDC. EPA. FAA. FDIC. GI Bill. Medicare. NASA. NCIC. Public libraries. And yes, even the military. The list of government successes goes on and on and on and on. That people are somehow able to look past all these is beyond my understanding.

What you should be asking yourself is: have less capable governments had successes with universal health care? The answer is a resounding yes.

Yep, ask the Icelandic government how it's paying for the healthcare for the 300,000.

Actually, Iceland wasn't one of the governments that I imagined DK might think is less capable than the US. Though the fact they were more socialized means that he probably didn't agree with them ideologically. I was more thinking Singapore or Columbia, both of which have universal health care and both are rated as having better care than the US. Singapore is considered to have one of the best health care systems in the world, rivaling even France.

Further reading on Singapore:
Singapore's Health Care System: A Free Lunch You Can Sink Your Teeth Into, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

I'm aware of the Singapore system. I lived there for some time and used it as an expatriated American. I can also say that it's expensive as far as taxes are concerned. Did you know that you pay extra for the siren when in an ambulance and it cannot run red lights? Yes, Singapore goes by the letter of the law, not the spirit.

Lee Kuan Yew spent a better part of his life ensuring that the Singaporean was well protected. There's no democracy there when I was living there, the PAP has ruled and governed for decades.

taxes taxes taxes!!!!

so $200,000 extra for a BMW.. yeah that's a lot of insurance premiums.

Is this one example an accurate cross section of the Singapore health care system? Did you ever hear any horror stories about exorbitant bills or people not being covered? How much did the siren cost?

Anyway, the fact remains that the U.S. spends almost 16 percent of its GDP on health care, while Singapore spends a mere 3.7 percent. It's not just impressive, it's downright amazing.

Edit: it looks like my new avatar is reading my posts. Unintended, but enjoyable.

I need a pair of glasses just like the ones you're wearing. they make things look so much better. truth be told though, I can't see how you claim these are government successes. With the exception of NASA, everything on that list is a total cluster of budgetary and administrative issues. I've worked under the FAA, I still have nightmares over the GI Bill, FDIC is near broke and needs to be part of the bailout.......shall I go on?

Ok, I'll add the tennessee river valley power situation. They have seem to have done that with alot less issues than the others.

it's really unclear to me what you're on about, dk, except that you oppose in principle what you imagine state actions to be and use that opposition to chop up information so it's consistent with that.

for example, earlier you worried that the state, which you assume would be at the center of a single-payer system on the uk model--which is neither the only nor the best way to implement universal health care, but that's another question---would price certain procedures out of reach. how is that any different from what the hmo system does now?
and the fact is that the state would be in a position to act on price structures with far more effect than hmos have been able or willing to do.
and the motivation behind such actions would not be profit.
you might ask yourself what sense it makes to integrate medical care into a for-profit model in the first place.

you also seem to have an entirely fabricated view of both what state regulation is and its effects. it's bizarre to me that you raise the tennessee valley authority as an example of a problematic state intervention and do it only by considering it in the present and not historically. if you look at what the tva has done since it's new deal inception, your objections become laughable. but if you erase the past and look only at objects, they appear to make sense. i don't think the problem there is the tva or state action, but you're approach to thinking about both.

as for the "objection" that the state could not run a whorehouse--look around you. the private sector has shown itself to be even worse at it. why is that? think exclusive emphasis on shareholder returns. but if the private sector was so "rational" how did that idiotic viewpoint come to be dominant?

maybe what is the case is that your entire viewpoint is based on a priori assumptions and not at all on thinking about the world, except incidentally as an accumulation of objects.

I think that we should replace the constitution with Peter Cetera lyrics.

Think about it.


Pow.

No it's not a cross section of anything. It's something I mentioned as a "did you know..."

Singapore taxes are high, especially if you want to live like you live in the United States. They also have a very large expat community and many don't use western medicine, so I believe those numbers are very, very skewed.

Out of curiosity what do you do now when insurance agency says sorry we don't cover that procedure? Also where is any evidence that universal health care will reject more procedures then the current insurance companies do?

My copay with my current insurance is $8 for a doctor visit and either $3 or $5 for prescriptions. With my old insurance, my doctor visits cost $25 and prescriptions were $10.

I thought it was pretty straight forward. My current health coverage costs less than what you assume I'd be paying with socialized health care. So even if money was my sole concern, socialized health care wouldn't be benefiting me.

I don't demand that they protect me from self-caused accidents. I demand that they protect me from things like arson.

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It seemed to be.

Yes, they do. That's why I disagree with many on the right when it comes to things like same-sex marriage

Values aren't necessarily the same thing as religious values (such as the one you used to explain your support for socialized health care). We don't need a Pope or a Koran to come up with arguments as to why things like rape and murder are wrong.

---------- Post added at 07:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:19 AM ----------

I'd do it all for the glory of love, you know.

telluride: what on earth makes you assume that an ethical and not a political decision lay behind a move to universal basic health care coverage?

it seems to me that your entire argument hinges on what looks to me like a category mistake.

cool, so if you accidentally start a grease fire in your kitchen or the light fixture you hung short circuits, you won't be calling the fire department then?

Awesome, so if you or someone you know accidentally starts a fire in your house that you can't put out you won't call the fire department?

Well universal systems have no copay, you show them an ID and that's it. And because records are centralized (unlike private systems), you can go to any hospital or clinic you'd like. If you're on vacation and need to see a doctor, you just go see them.
You said $3500 a year, I said $3000 a year. So even if we were paying the highest per capita rate among all the universal health care countries, you'd be paying less. Spain's average is about $2100 a year.
You wouldn't call 911 if you came home to see your house on fire but deduced it was because you left the stove on? Doesn't that seem kinda irresponsible? Besides, you can get hurt in circumstances well outside your control.

Just because a value is within a religion does not make that value invalid. In fact i'd argue that there is no difference between a value that comes from religion and one that comes from elsewhere. If a person considers it one of their values then it is a value.

Also we don't need the Pope or Koran to tell us that ignoring the sick is is wrong.