Soviet Union Rewind: Why Are We Praising Communism Again?

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Why do you think it is up to the government to decide your treatment?
I have already an American medical plan and you cannot just go in and say i want a heart transplant. You have to see a regular doctor first and he will evaluate you and decide whether or not to send you to a heart specialist. Then, if you are lucky, you make an appointment to see the heart specialist and you wait about three or more months to see him. Now that you have your appointment for the specialist, then it is up to him to decide if you need the procedure or not. Suppose he says yes. then you have to wait another three months to a year for your appointment for the procedure. They also have emergency rooms for people who have an emergency. You go to the desk clerk and say you have an emergency. He will then tell you that all the doctors have been called out on an emergency that occurred a few hours ago, so you will have to wait, along with a hundred other people, to see a doctor. Then you wait and after 12 hours or more, you get to see a doctor. This is how it is now. imagine how it would be under an American government run operation. It will be long lines and long waits and having to deal with government employees, who are not always the friendliest people in the world.
 
It is not a case of market failure as the market hasn’t been allowed to operate in a climate of competition unhampered by the state and corporate behemoths who work with the state.
You keep talking about health insurance as if it can operate as a viable provider of healthcare, but health insurance is quite simply not designed to do the job you are talking about. It isn’t a matter of markets not being allowed to operate freely, it’s that a mechanism for mitigating financial risk is being utilized as a means to pay for routine health care, a role insurance cannot properly perform.

There is a place for health insurance, namely mitigating the financial risks of unanticipated health emergencies, but it is the wrong tool for the job we have put it towards in this country. Deregulating the health insurance market won’t change the fact that insurance is not and can not be designed to provide cost effective, robust health services. It has nothing to do with a free market and everything to do with the wrong business model being utilized in the health service market.

Peace and God bless!
 
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While I still disagree, it was wrong of me simply to point to insurance as what I meant. Certainly direct pay as JimG has shown is an option. But my point still stands about the oligopolistic control of the market for healthcare.
 
Certainly direct pay as JimG has shown is an option. But my point still stands about the oligopolistic control of the market for healthcare.
Direct pay is fine, and no one advocating MfA is against private pay or independent medical providers. This of course still runs into the problem of analysing a market in ignorance, but that problem will remain regardless of who does the paying.

As for healthcare being a public good, there are people who might argue against it but it’s difficult to see how they could stand. A healthy population is a public reality, not a private one. My healthcare decisions have a very real public impact both economically and socially, and once everyone’s decisions and access are factored into the equation health obviously is a public good just as sanitation is. This is to say nothing of the potential for communicable illnesses being spread throughout the population.

The public dimension of private health simply can’t be overlooked. How to appropriately handle the issue is a matter of debate, but whether or not health is a public good shouldn’t be.

Peace and God bless!
 
It isn’t a matter of markets not being allowed to operate freely, it’s that a mechanism for mitigating financial risk is being utilized as a means to pay for routine health care, a role insurance cannot properly perform.
I certainly agree with this. Insurance, both private and public, has become a method of paying for routine health care costs, as well as a guaranteed income plan for health care workers.
 
If the state decides a 95-year-old man or woman is not “worthy” of being allowed to live or have his or her health restored or at least improved, then that’s just too bad for that patient.
I doubt an insurance company would pay if the economics didn’t work.
Because I have the opportunity to pay out of pocket, if insurance turns me down.
I would support being able to pay out of pocket too.,
 
This is how it is now. imagine how it would be under an American government run operation. It will be long lines and long waits and having to deal with government employees, who are not always the friendliest people in the world.
Except it is not a government run operation. It is your doctor that works with you, diagnosing & prescribing, same as before.
The government pays the bills submitted by your doctor, based on the negotiated fee schedule established between the government and the physicians professional association.
The only involvement of the government is paying the bill.
Imagine rather, not having to worry about having to sell your house, going bankrupt, etc. cuz unexpected charges, payment denials, etc.
Added: Imagine too, not having to calculate whether paying out of pocket (actually handing over $$) will be more economical than going through your insurance plan (that you supposedly already bought).
 
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Physicians complain even now about having to get prior approval from Medicare / CMS to do particular procedures or prescribe particular medications which are needed in their medical judgment but the Medicare overseers have to be convinced, taking up time and energy, and a doc’s medical judgment may still be overruled. But, they have the same problem with private insurance company oversight.
 
You are absolutely right.
If you do not want the continuation of mutated pseudo-Sovok, (with a capital in Moscow) then just help Ukrainians to build a strong army.
 
Yes, I am from Ukraine but I did not vote for the comic.
The comic(our current president) is Moscow puppet.
In my opinion, the stronger is Frankenstain(Imperialistic Russia) , the worst for the future of civilised world.
Gradually, I changing my opinions, and what now I began to understand that if the state does not have strong army and united organizes nation, then that state is in danger to be swallowed by crafty historical imperialistic neighbour, who denies peoples rights for national identity.
So, yes, from one side, the war is an absolute evil, but from another side of the coin sometimes war is like the birth of the child, the birth of the nation.
 
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It’s evident.
I was for Poroshenko, but Zelenskiy after winning his president’s campaign due to ollegarch’s invests, will be in big trouble if he will gradually decide to transform himself into second Lukashenko.
Ukraine is not a Belarus, we are not Russian province.
We are not little brothers of Russia, we are different ethnicly, identically, spiritually.
To forgive the evil doer means to allow evil doer to continue its crimes.
Putin’s regime must pay for its crimes on annexed Ukrainian territories.
Thanks to this war (and facts of long history) many Ukrainians woke up and realized that brotherhood theory is a historical brainwash myth, and our existential enemy, “the empire of evil” must collapse.
But there are powers that are interested to build strong Russian Empire in order to terrorise civilised world.
 
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Obamacare was always private heath insurance and not government insurance

I was on it before going on Medicare.
 
Physicians may complain, and I am sure the paperwork and red tape is absurd, but in principle I do not understand why they should expect the paying party to not have to approve of expenditures.
 
We still expect the paying party to be fair. When a patient’s doctor orders a test or treatment he or she knows the patient needs, and the paying party isn’t a doctor and has no medical training or knowledge, where do they get off arbitrarily refusing to pay it, just because they can, and thinking they know better than the doctor does? That’s pretty darned arrogant, if you ask me!
 
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