Judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional, endangering coverage for 20 million

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen_C
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
JonNC said:
I think the combination of the market and charities can do far better than that.
Click to expand...
Then why isn’t it?

We pay the most per capita and yet we still don’t have universal coverage like all other industrialized countries. And between 70-80% of all personal bankruptcies here in the States have medical expenses as being a major factor. I can drive 20 minutes to get into Canada whereas personal bankruptcies are not caused by this.

The last Canadian poll I’ve seen on this has it that the most popular Canadian in all of its history is the Saskatchewan doctor who designed their healthcare system. It ain’t perfect by any means, but I’ll take theirs over ours in a heartbeat.
 
Last edited:
It is very difficult to compare apples to apples when it comes to healthcare systems. One of the major reasons is that certain things get counted in some countries and not in others. Also, what might be an acceptable deductible in the U.S. (usually 20%, and disappearing) might not be in, say, Canada (sometimes 30% and not disappearing)

As I mentioned before, a big part of France’s medical cost is not part of its disclosed medical cost. One big item is free medical education and free government-paid malpractice insurance. In the U.S., med students pay their own way and hope to recoup from fees later. Malpractice insurance in the U.S. is massively more expensive than in FRance. France also has a separate court system and special schools for the judges in malpractice cases.

But none of that is counted in “medical costs”. Medical providers in France, other than hospitals, don’t bill the government themselves. That cost is passed on to the consumer who has to file his own claim with the government. In America, providers almost always are the ones who do that work, and pay the people who do it. That shift in cost is substantial, but is not counted as part of the “cost” in France.

The systems in the developed world are different from one another, and not all calculate costs the same way.
 
Ridgerunner said:
The systems in the developed world are different from one another, and not all calculate costs the same way.
Click to expand...
Different countries, different systems, why not take the best and leave the rest. In the same way not all countries calculate costs in the same way, not all of them consider pooling their resources an affront to their personal freedom. Instead healthcare is considered a necessity and part of a lifeline for the ill and a security for the healthy. The root of health care at it’s very inception was never based on an economical model and a luxury of which some could afford. It was based on a Hippocratic oath of which is honorable, and I assure you, grossly compensated CEO’S running a for profit system, Big Pharma and the idea that it is a luxury for the few wasn’t a twinkle in the eye of healthcare at it’s birth.

To say there is “no way” and no one offers anything in the way of universal health is indolence on the part of the naysayer who refuses to study, look, and compare the positive attributes of health care systems in other countries that are doing it, and doing it well. Now that would be a conversation for topic!~

After all, we don’t boast of ranking first in any honorable aspect of health care when compared to other post industrialized nations, except of course expenditure per capita. So why not learn?
 
ps: a combination of market and charities can do it better??

I dunno. Market and charities seems like a contradiction in terms. They’ve never worked too well together in the past, hahaha

edited: except at tax time hahaha
 
Last edited:
Metis1 said:
40.png
Inisfallen:
No more “dictated” than insurance is now.
Click to expand...
Exactly, as everyone familiar with the system well knows that it is the insurance companies who are “driving the bus” with most of them amassing substantial profits.
Click to expand...
Again, let me know when a private company can tax you for not having their plan. Maybe if government stopped dictating what must be in the plans, then you could say the companies are driving the bus. Last I saw, it was Congress that passed ACA, not BCBS.
 
Actually, the U.S. ranks first in a number of ways; recovery from most cancers being among the more dramatic ones. Emergency treatment. MRIs per capita. Treatment of illegal aliens and we have more of them than any other country by far. Successful maternity deliveries, both with and without instrumentation.

It’s not right to simply condemn the U.S. system because it isn’t called “universal”. A lot of the “universal” systems really aren’t, or might as well not be.

And do you think the insurers in a place like Canada which is actually an insurance company reimbursement system, doesn’t have highly paid executives? Do you think those companies don’t make a profit?
 
JonNC said:
Again, let me know when a private company can tax you for not having their plan. Maybe if government stopped dictating what must be in the plans, then you could say the companies are driving the bus. Last I saw, it was Congress that passed ACA, not BCBS.
Click to expand...
When we had insurance companies that would not cover the alternative to opiates (in bed with Big Pharma here, side note) and we see down the road the need to regulate (again, we’re reactive with our laws, not pro-active) due to a nationwide epidemic (result of the insurance companies operating under unbridled market place concepts)…….Houston. We have a problem!~
 
Ridgerunner said:
It’s not right to simply condemn the U.S. system because it isn’t called “universal”
Click to expand...
It’s not a condemnation to not be “first” in overall health care administration. It’s a call we can be better. ps: the things you mentioned are not unique to the United States, it we can’t deliver a baby, again, Houston, we have a problem
 
It’s not a matter of that. The U.S. is, in fact, the best in a number of areas of healthcare. As I mentioned, most cancers are an example. One of the reasons is as follows:

“Very expensive cancer treatments such as the new immunotherapies for cancer are more widely available in America than in countries with national healthcare where there are restrictions based on cost/benefit and budget caps.”

www.forbes.com

Why The US Has Better Cancer Survival Rates Than The Rest Of The World

Is it true that the USA is better at cancer treatment than other countries, or is this an artifact of the statistics? This question was originally answered on Quora by David Chan.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
Inisfallen said:
OK, fair enough. Although I will say that I haven’t seen anyone here advocate for “government-dicated healthcare.” Not even close. Some here do advocate for national health insurance of one kind or another.
Click to expand...
I don’t see the difference when you look at how it has been implemented in other OECD countries. It is dictated.
 
Ridgerunner said:
“Very expensive cancer treatments such as the new immunotherapies for cancer are more widely available in America than in countries with national healthcare where there are restrictions based on cost/benefit and budget caps.”
Click to expand...
If we go to a national plan, most of that innovation will go away and no other OECD country will pay to fill the R&D gap. Maybe it’s a good trade off with more resources for the masses, but it will have an impact on global innovation in new treatments and their cost curve.
 
I remember some time ago reading that two of the reasons American healthcare is as expensive as it is are:
  1. The system recoups costs in charges for treatment, whereas many other countries subsidize them going in. That includes medical education, malpractice insurance and malpractice claims. In lots of countries, the government pays those things but does not include them in “cost of care”. In the U.S. the provider pays for them and charges patients for them.
  2. The guiding principle in American medical care is “do everything”. Don’t leave a test undone or a treatment untried. That is, to a large degree, due to malpractice fears that are somewhat unique to the U.S. legal system. In most other countries, they don’t “do everything”. They husband the resources a lot more closely. Going back to France, it has a separate legal system for med mal cases. The lawyers can only charge hourly fees, not percentages. There are specially trained judges for those courts. And the government pays both the judges and for the malpractice insurance. But none of that is counted in “medical costs”, though it sure does reduce malpractice claims and the overtreatment that often accompanies them.
 
According to the article, the private sector does more and more of it. I noted with interest the acquisition of Celgene by Bristol Myers. $74 billion is a lot of money. Celgene wasn’t making any money itself, but Bristol does. Basic research is exactly what Celgene does.
 
sallybutler said:
Amazing, because until about 2004, government funded more medical research than private companies, based on this 2017 article. Doesn’t seem like the private sector used to do all that much innovation anyway.
Click to expand...
Your figure is limited to ‘basic research’ which by it’s nature doesn’t yield a profit. You are ignoring the vast amounts of money spent to develop and bring treatments to market.

Not defending the drug companies, but they spend significantly and it’s to bring them to the US market first, where they get an ROI. Only later are many of these drugs widely available internationally.

Also, your data is for all areas of basic science and not specific to the medical field.
 
Last edited:
I don’t know how the spending broke down before 2014 or after. But I am guessing that private companies start spending big when there seems like something big is on the horizon. Otherwise, perhaps government is the only party interested in more mundane stuff.

Genetic research, particularly immunology, seems to have a lot of promise nowadays. I’m not surprised Bristol put 74 billion into Celgene which, itself, wasn’t making a nickel. it’s the “down the road” value if Celgene comes up with a remedy for something like cancer or ALS or even diabetes. It’s possible.
 
JonNC said:
Why on Earth would they think that any government plan would be better in terms of religious free exercise?
Click to expand...
I would say the answer to your question is “history.” Government getting involved in healthcare is relatively new to Man, a result of us being more civilized and valuing life. Before then, it was not uncommon for disease to ravage the poor, and only the rich could afford medical care.
 
pnewton said:
I would say the answer to your question is “history.” Government getting involved in healthcare is relatively new to Man, a result of us being more civilized and valuing life. Before then, it was not uncommon for disease to ravage the poor, and only the rich could afford medical care.
Click to expand...
Imaginable. But before government was involved in healthcare it was massively less expensive than it is now. So was health insurance. Possibly there was a competition factor before Medicare and Medicaid that kept costs reasonable. But too, the diagnostics were largely a matter of physician judgment and treatments were pretty basic.

Long, long ago before even a semblance of modern medicine, a person was probably better off with no medical treatment at all, since the quackish “cures” were often worse than the diseases they were meant to cure.

Having said all of that, I happened to buy a 1922 medical school book on surgery just for office décor. (Neat looking book) I’m not a medical person, but over time I have occupationally read thousands of medical records, including surgical notes. The surgical procedures in 1922 were very little different from those today. But the costs aren’t, of course.
 
What were the costs in relation to income?

Also, people used to try to avoid going to hospitals. Most thought of hospitals as where you went to die.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top