Pope Francis: healthcare is a 'universal right,' not a 'consumer good' [CWN]

[JimR-OCDS]

Ridgerunner;

First, there is no difference between the premiums charged by not-for-profit insurers (Mutual of Omaha/United of Omaha being the biggest) and those charged by for-profit insurers. The insurers are not getting fat on premiums, though they do have to pay scrupulous attention to the bottom line so they don’t lose money.

Actually they are getting fat. Blue Cross and Blue Shield is a not-for-profit company. They’re BOD’s were getting 6 digit salaries before they were caught and dropped from Romneycare.

The premiums for most companies, merely covers administration costs. The companies make their money off investments, which are tax free. This is how insurance works.

If you run an insurance company and have say $100,000,000 in liability, that is, the total costs if every one of your customers had to use their policies to the max, you must have $100,000,000 to cover those costs. However, it can be invested and all the capital gains, are tax free. However, insurance companies know that only a small portion of their customers will use merely a part of their policy coverage. so the money to be made is huge.

Come to Boston and see who owns the large buildings, its not the hospitals, but the insurance companies.

Medicare is subsidized and discounted as well. So your doctor is really saying all medical treatment should be discounted (discounted from what?) and subsidized in full by the government. The Medicare liabilities are already in the trillions and unpayable, so why is this a remedy?

Medicare is funded by people working who pay medicare tax, the same as Social Security.

If the government stop using the revenues collected for these to fund unnecessary wars and foreign aid to countries like Israel, they could pay for everyone’s healthcare, no problem.

Other countries do it, we can to.

Jim

 

[Suudy]

Except that we do pay for food, clothing and shelter for those who can’t afford it. Are these things basic rights or is it socialism which we should abandon ?

I didn’t say otherwise. In fact, I agree the government can step in when necessary to support those in need. What I strongly object to is a takeover of the healthcare system. If your support for the takeover of the healthcare system is because a fraction of the population is unable to get coverage, why not do the same for food, clothing, or shelter?

Really ?
Why is the US Healthcare System ranked lower than countries that have single payer universal healthcare ?

Which ranking? The completely discredit WHO report we keep smacking down on here?

OH sure, we excel in specialized medicine and cosmetic surgery, but the average person who isn’t working for a big corporation, getting healthcare without losing their house in the process was in shambles and Obamacare was the first step in fixing this.

The reason “the average person who isn’t working for a big corporation” is having trouble getting coverage is the government, not the insurance system.

And I don’t work for a big corporation. In fact, the first 20 years of my career I worked for companies with no more than about 50 employees. My current company has about 3500 employees. All of these companies provided health care for my me and my family. The system was working just fine for me and my friends.

The fact that there were difficulties 1) means the the government needs to quit meddling, and 2) step in when necessary to help and get out as soon as possible. The problem is the government.

I was in the ER several times with my mother and father, before Romneycare came into being. The place was packed with people with no health insurance, having their kids checked for ear infections, flu and just trying to get immunization shots so they could go to school.

Sounds like those people needed some help. Does that mean the government needed to completely revamp the system to help them? Or could it have been more targeted in its assistance?

Before Obamacare, if you were laid off from your job, you lost your health insurance or you paid $1500 per month. People had to cash in their 401k’s to pay for their health insurance or go without. If the got sick with cancer or some other ailment, they lost their life savings and even their homes, in order to get treatment because they didn’t qualify for medicaid.

When I was unemployed for a year, I went without coverage. It didn’t mean the end of the world.

I saw it and I saw the people who were harmed greatly because they had no health insurance.

Ok, so why did Uncle Sam need to mess with my insurance to help them?

A single payer universal health care system, like Bernie Sanders was advocating, would eliminate the need for corporations to buy health insurance for their employees. The employees would no longer have to pay premiums, but would pay a healthcare tax, which would in fact be lower for most than their premiums are.

And they would lose choice. Don’t like your plan? Drop them and hire someone else? Oh, wait… There isn’t anything else.

An employee could transfer to a better paying job or start a business without worrying about having to buy health insurance which they can’t afford when not employed.

I never had an issue. And starting a business isn’t a risk free proposition. When my buddy started his own home-automation business, he saved enough to get the ball rolling to keep himself and his family insured until then. The coverage wasn’t a stellar as it was when he worked at a larger company, but it was adequate.

Our healthcare system was broken, especially in states where insurance companies could drop you if you got sick, or refuse to insure your child who was born with a health issue.

It is illegal for a company to drop people who are sick. Assuming premiums were up to date, it would be a breach of contract to drop someone or refuse to pay for covered services. This canard about dropping people solely if they are sick keeps getting repeated with zero evidence that it occurs.

ACA isn’t perfect, but let me ask, is it better for people to go without health insurance in the USA today ?

Why was the ACA necessary to accomplish this? Why tweak the entire system, which the majority of people stated they were satisfied with their healthcare, just to help a few people? Why not have a targeted approach?

I’m with others on here that think the ACA was designed to fail. It was designed to make things worse so usher in a single-payer system. It seems to me that the real concern people have is that some people get excellent coverage and some get hardly any coverage. Rather, they would prefer everyone have barely adequate coverage.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridgerunner;

Actually they are getting fat. Blue Cross and Blue Shield is a not-for-profit company. They’re BOD’s were getting 6 digit salaries before they were caught and dropped from Romneycare.

The premiums for most companies, merely covers administration costs. The companies make their money off investments, which are tax free. This is how insurance works.

If you run an insurance company and have say $100,000,000 in liability, that is, the total costs if every one of your customers had to use their policies to the max, you must have $100,000,000 to cover those costs. However, it can be invested and all the capital gains, are tax free. However, insurance companies know that only a small portion of their customers will use merely a part of their policy coverage. so the money to be made is huge.

Come to Boston and see who owns the large buildings, its not the hospitals, but the insurance companies.

Medicare is funded by people working who pay medicare tax, the same as Social Security.

If the government stop using the revenues collected for these to fund unnecessary wars and foreign aid to countries like Israel, they could pay for everyone’s healthcare, no problem.

Other countries do it, we can to.

Jim

Do you really think government bureaucrats won’t be making six-figure salaries, plus getting unfunded pensions besides? They already make more than people in private business doing comparable things. There is not the slightest reason to believe government healthcare will save a nickel, and plenty of reason to doubt it.

Medicare was always “pay as you go”. It’s not a matter of wars or Israel. It’s a matter of the tax not being high enough to pay for the care. But that’s not all of it. It’s also discounted. If my insurer pays $100 for something, the government pays $60 for the very same thing. My insurer (and therefore me) are paying to keep the whole house of cards upright without the government admitting that it’s so.

Turn it all over to the government and the de facto subsidy by insurers and self-pay collapses and the Medicare deficit goes up massively. With Medicaid, it’s even worse.

Now, think about this. Insurance companies don’t get a lot of capital gains. Mostly they buy fixed-income securities so they can match their income stream against calculated liabilities. When, as now, the rates of return are artificially low, premiums are the only way to make up the difference.

Why are rates artificially low? Because the Fed keeps them there. It does that because the economy stinks. Last quarter the GDP increase was 1/2 of 1% away from recession. And even at that, banks are flush with liquidity because businesses won’t borrow. Why won’t they borrow? Because they can’t “pencil out” their costs due to things like Obamacare, the promise to make utility bills “skyrocket”, lunacy like turning over every pond and puddle in the country to the army (yes, the army). Business people can’t figure out what the government will do to them next, so they stay cautious.

We’re on a bad, bad path, and all this administration has done is make it worse. It’s slowly strangling the goose that laid the golden egg.

Yes, defense costs money. It just does. And Israel is part of that defense. Israel spends all of the money we give it on our own manufactures. That’s part of the deal. So, Israelis spend most of their own defense budget and we spend some. But it comes back, both in terms of money paid to Boeing, Martin-Marietta, etc, and in terms of some of the world’s best soldiers and intelligence people. Strange as it may seem, it’s probable that Israel prevented WWIII back in the 1980s. But that’s another story.

Why do Europeans not have children? Look at the taxes they are paying for their welfare states. Look at French wages and taxes. And then add to that the fact that their “government healthcare” is reimbursement only. You pay up front, then bill the government. Besides that, illegal immigrants get no care unless the pay for it up front, and they get no reimbursement. It’s not all as rosy as people think.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

Like I mentioned in another post, it depends on what you mean by “socialized healthcare.” Do you mean universal healthcare?

For the essentials, yes, absolutely.

 

[Roselle]

I understand the general idea of what is being said. Helpful healthcare should be provided for those with need.

I do wish though that our western medical system could be reformed and improved effectively. There were reports last week of how many die prematurely due to our current system. I know effort have been made to improve the current health care system by requiring more college degrees for nurses. That doesn’t seem to be helping the problem, and instead seems to be contributing to higher health care costs.

“Medical mistakes now 3rd leading cause of death for Americans”

wlwt.com/news/Medical-mistakes-now-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-for-Americans/39420028

Articles were highlighting this problem a decade ago.

“Medical care is 3rd leading cause of death in U.S.”

chriskresser.com/medical-care-is-the-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us/

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Suudy;

I didn’t say otherwise. In fact, I agree the government can step in when necessary to support those in need. What I strongly object to is a takeover of the healthcare system. If your support for the takeover of the healthcare system is because a fraction of the population is unable to get coverage, why not do the same for food, clothing, or shelter?

Which ranking? The completely discredit WHO report we keep smacking down on here?

Yeah I know, conservatives which are the majority in this forum, have a problem with data from WHO, or anyone that comes out with data that contradicts the conservative ideology.

U.S. Healthcare Ranked Dead Last Compared To 10 Other Countries

forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/#505084ca1b96

Next I expect to see the accusation that Forbes is a liberal source.

The reason “the average person who isn’t working for a big corporation” is having trouble getting coverage is the government, not the insurance system.

Actually it was the corporations which sent jobs to China, Mexico and India, so that when the economy collapsed in 2008 and people lost their jobs, they lost their health insurance.
Obama tried to close the tax loophole which gave companies the incentive for moving over seas, but the GOP controlled Congress called closing the loophole a tax increase and would not allow a proposal to be heard in the House or Senate.

I lost my job in 2010, when the company I worked for, which made good profit through the recession, sent my and two engineers jobs over to China. At age 59,5, my wife and myself were without health insurance. The jobs I was able to get at my age, had no benefits, I had to work as a 1099 self-employed. My COBRA was $1500 per month and that would eat up my retirement savings. Thankfully, I lived in MA and go access to Romneycare. I ended up going for a physical and they found colon cancer, when I was 62 years of age. So, no one would hire me after than and I was force to retire. Again, thank God for Romenycare which then became Obamacare…

I know this upsets conservatives in this forum, but I’m not alone for I know many others who also lost their jobs who were over 50 years of age. They never found employment with benefits and were all forced into retirement at age 62. Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65.

So, I have experience that most of the people who oppose Obamacare, don’t have and just listen to Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives who misrepresent the data.

Anyway, this is an old debate that I’ve had in this forum and don’t care to do it anymore.

The only question I’ll ask is, why is it better for a person not to have health insurance ?

Jim

 

[Suudy]

For the essentials, yes, absolutely.

Why does that need to be the case? For the essentials, we can cover the margin with minimal government intrusion. Why upset the entire system, which many people prior to Obamacare declared they liked their coverage, to provide a small fraction of the population with this coverage?

 

[Suudy]

Do you really think government bureaucrats won’t be making six-figure salaries, plus getting unfunded pensions besides? They already make more than people in private business doing comparable things. There is not the slightest reason to believe government healthcare will save a nickel, and plenty of reason to doubt it.

This is a good point. It seems people think that if government does something, there will be no graft, no payoffs, no wheedling, no waste, etc. I think it quite the opposite. There is no incentive for government to eliminate WFA, since there’s bottom line.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

This is a good point. It seems people think that if government does something, there will be no graft, no payoffs, no wheedling, no waste, etc. I think it quite the opposite. There is no incentive for government to eliminate WFA, since there’s bottom line.

The government runs Social Security and Medicare and I dare you tell seniors that this doesn’t run well and should end.

Also, do you trust the government to send Americans to fight and die in unnecessary wars, but not provide health insurance ?

Jim

 

[Crossbones]

Do they have to be European or Canadian to have an valid opinion on the matter?

Archbishop Chaput in this interview:
The U.S. bishops have spoken in favor of a universal right to health care.
The bishops really do believe it. Health is a basic human right; we have a right to be healthy. There’s no declaration on the part of the Church that that has to be accomplished through government intervention.
There are many ways of approaching health care, and I think it’s very important for Catholics to understand the fact that the Church, seeing health care as a basic human right, does not mean [to say] there’s a particular method of obtaining that [right that’s] better than another.
Which agrees with your point, but contrary to gnjsdad that seems to say that universal healthcare is a moral imperative.

But then there is Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn (here):
This notion that health care ought to be determined at the lowest level rather than at the higher strata of society, has been promoted by the Church as “subsidiarity.” Subsidiarity is that principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives. (See: Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, ## 185ff.; Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 1883) The writings of recent Popes have warned that the neglect of subsidiarity can lead to an excessive centralization of human services, which in turn leads to excessive costs, and loss of personal responsibility and quality of care.
Read the entire letter. It’s pretty convincing that universal healthcare is contrary to subsidiarity.

And finally Papa Benedict (here):
The state which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person – every person – needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a state which regulates and controls everything, but a state which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.
I don’t see how universal healthcare can accomplish both ends: a right to healthcare and the principle of subsidiarity. The mere term “universal” undermines subsidiarity.

Thanks for this. I want what you linked to carefully before responding.

 

[estesbob]

I live in Canada, my wife is a physician “in the system”, and we have never heard of anyone waiting more than briefly for cancer treatments. Anyone I’ve known with cancer has been diagnosed, staged, and treated appropriately quickly. And that goes for my wife’s patients. There are long waiting lists for some elective surgeries, but not for cancer. Ditto for heart disease; where I live the average time from an MI to an arterial stent installation is usually within 24 hours of admission to a primary or secondary centre and includes transfer time to a tertiary centre. I won’t say delays never occur, but they are very rare if at all and usually of short duration. Cancer mortality rates in Canada compare with the average of industrialized nations:

The most visible manifestation of Canada’s failing health care system are wait times for health care services. In 2013, Canadians, on average, faced a four and a half month wait for medically necessary treatment after referral by a general practitioner. This wait time is almost twice as long as it was in 1993 when national wait times were first measured.

forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/06/13/if-universal-health-care-is-the-goal-dont-copy-canada/#411ed7bc290d

(factcheck.org)

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Once again, why is it better for a person not to have health insurance in the USA ?

Jim

 

[mary_bobo]

I understand the general idea of what is being said. Helpful healthcare should be provided for those with need.

I do wish though that our western medical system could be reformed and improved effectively. There were reports last week of how many die prematurely due to our current system. I know effort have been made to improve the current health care system by requiring more college degrees for nurses. That doesn’t seem to be helping the problem, and instead seems to be contributing to higher health care costs.

“Medical mistakes now 3rd leading cause of death for Americans”

wlwt.com/news/Medical-mistakes-now-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-for-Americans/39420028

Articles were highlighting this problem a decade ago.

“Medical care is 3rd leading cause of death in U.S.”

chriskresser.com/medical-care-is-the-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us/

With all due respect, college degrees do not a good nurse make. In my experience in the healthcare field, hospital trained nurses were far more capable than those who trained otherwise. Sadly, many of the hospital affiliated nursing programs are no more.

 

[Suudy]

Yeah I know, conservatives which are the majority in this forum, have a problem with data from WHO, or anyone that comes out with data that contradicts the conservative ideology.

I see. You don’t address the actually criticisms of the report, only the source of the criticisms. Very open minded of you.

Next I expect to see the accusation that Forbes is a liberal source.

Forbes is reporting on a report generated by the Commonwealth Fund. This isn’t a Forbes study, so I’m not sure why you’d think a Forbes article would carry any weight. All that matters is the report.

Now, let’s talk about the Commonwealth Fund. Here’s from their “About Us” page:
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.
The Commonwealth Fund is particularly interested in the margins, which we’ve already discussed. They are clearly an advocacy group for those in need.

Now, look at their categories. They line up extremely close to that of the WHO report (which the Forbes article indicates is a source for the Commonwealth Fund’s report).

Quality: Wait for it. The article admits the US scores very high on the quality fo care.

Access: And they define access as, wait for it, coverage. Since countries with universal health care obviously have 100% coverage, they can rank them higher than the US. It’s a category pre-defined to put US at the bottom of the list.

Efficiency: This includes categories like administration (a cost directly attributable to government mandates and reporting) and duplicative medical testing (directly attributable to CYA medicine).

Equity: And here it is. Since some people have better coverage than others, the equity of coverage isn’t as good. Well of course single-payer would be equitable. Everyone gets equally poor coverage. This is like income inequality. So what if somebody has better coverage? Why does this category even matter?

Healthy lives: Again, this is defined like the WHO report. Infant mortality and life expectancy. And it has the same problems as the WHO report.

And one other point. It ranks Canada barely above the US. Yet Canada has the wonderful system you want. How can it rank so much worse than other socialized systems? Perhaps because these measures don’t really measure healthcare systems, but rather health behaviors and other factors.

Actually it was the corporations which sent jobs to China, Mexico and India, so that when the economy collapsed in 2008 and people lost their jobs, they lost their health insurance.

Huh. My employer didn’t. I don’t know anyone who lost their jobs. I lived in Seattle at the time, and Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were growing. Which jobs were sent overseas in 2008?

Obama tried to close the tax loophole which gave companies the incentive for moving over seas, but the GOP controlled Congress called closing the loophole a tax increase and would not allow a proposal to be heard in the House or Senate.

When was this? As I recall, the Democrats controlled the House and Senate from 2006 through 2010, and the House, Senate, and Presidency from 2008 to 2010. So what “GOP controlled Congress” are you talking about?

I lost my job in 2010, when the company I worked for, which made good profit through the recession, sent my and two engineers jobs over to China. At age 59,5, my wife and myself were without health insurance. The jobs I was able to get at my age, had no benefits, I had to work as a 1099 self-employed. My COBRA was $1500 per month and that would eat up my retirement savings. Thankfully, I lived in MA and go access to Romneycare. I ended up going for a physical and they found colon cancer, when I was 62 years of age. So, no one would hire me after than and I was force to retire. Again, thank God for Romenycare which then became Obamacare…

Ok. So it helped you. Why did Congress have to change my plan, which I was perfectly happy with? Why not just help you and similarly situation people? How about a COBRA assistance plan? Why an attempted overhaul?

I know this upsets conservatives in this forum, but I’m not alone for I know many others who also lost their jobs who were over 50 years of age. They never found employment with benefits and were all forced into retirement at age 62. Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65.

My mother is 70, and still working. She switched jobs several times since 2008, and has had no trouble finding work. And what she does isn’t particularly specialized (she does software test for database development companies). I don’t know why you couldn’t find a job at 62. My mother has had no trouble.

So, I have experience that most of the people who oppose Obamacare, don’t have and just listen to Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives who misrepresent the data.

I haven’t listened to Rush since college (over 20 years ago). And which data am I misrepresenting?

Anyway, this is an old debate that I’ve had in this forum and don’t care to do it anymore.

I accept your concession.

The only question I’ll ask is, why is it better for a person not to have health insurance ?

Who said that? I didn’t. Nobody did. The issue is why is it better to completely upend a system that works for the majority of people to meet the needs on the margin necessary to achieve this end?

 

[JimG]

The government runs Social Security and Medicare and I dare you tell seniors that this doesn’t run well and should end.

Also, do you trust the government to send Americans to fight and die in unnecessary wars, but not provide health insurance ?

Jim

Hmm, I am a senior, getting both social security and Medicare. However, both programs are unsustainable, so I don’t expect that they will last forever without collapsing the economy.

 

[Suudy]

The government runs Social Security and Medicare and I dare you tell seniors that this doesn’t run well and should end.

I’m not the only one saying it. My late father did. My mother does. My father-in-law and mother-in-law do. My wife’s grandfather does. My uncle does. My late aunt did.

So, I dare you tell those seniors they are wrong.

Also, do you trust the government to send Americans to fight and die in unnecessary wars, but not provide health insurance ?

You misunderstand. I don’t trust the government to do anything efficiently. That’s the key. I was in the military. My father was a 27 year Navy veteran. The best man at my wedding is USAF colonel. They will all tell you how wasteful the government is.

The issue isn’t whether they can get it done. The issue is how efficiently they can do so. People are people. There are greedy, selfish, pompous, overbearing people in the government just as there are at private companies. It is naive to think that just because an insurance program is administered by the government these motives will disappear. As Ridge pointed out, there will be fat cats collecting 6+ digit incomes in the government. And they will do so with no eye on costs, no concern about customer service, and with the knowledge that nobody else can come into the market and drive them out.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Hmm, I am a senior, getting both social security and Medicare. However, both programs are unsustainable, so I don’t expect that they will last forever without collapsing the economy.

Actually both are sustainable.

Jim

 

[Convert_in_99]

I support the Pope on this!

 

[Suudy]

Once again, why is it better for a person not to have health insurance in the USA ?

Jim

Once again, who claimed this is the case?

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Once again, who claimed this is the case?

Those who oppose ACA

Jim