Would you support universal access to counseling and therapy?

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RCIAGraduate

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Would you be supportive of a government-funded system that works to ensure counseling and therapy for all who may need it? It ideally, should be supplemented by therapy and counseling from other groups like Churches and Charities though.

Thoughts? Feedback?
 
You mean like a single payer system for mental health?

The answer for me is the same as single payer for everything else: I don’t know. 😉

I think if you live in a large or mid-sized metro area, you might have more access than you think, especially for non-psychiatric care, even without insurance coverage.

I think in rural areas it can be a lot harder, though telecounseling is growing.

I think stigma is a much bigger barrier than we give credit for.
 
What are going to be its maximum standards?

What are going to be its agendas including implicitly hidden ones?

What will be the penalties for not partaking to the extent of “complying” with the “therapy” and/or “counsel” imposed?

To prove its usefulness you will be defined as a “problem person” that it needs to “address”.

8 billion human beings are cracking up through loneliness.

The only tonic my grandparents had was their neighbour.

The only unforgivable sins for Catholics are to want relationship and community.
 
I believe the richest country (or one of the richest) should be able to provide reasonable access to healthcare for all its citizens.

That said, I would like government as far away from controlling healthcare as possible. Then a bit farther.

You know, we look at the poorest nations on earth, those the world powers deem as needing aide, and the root of their problems is not available resources. The root are political machines which lose if the people win.

Unfortunately, our system has turned towards feeding the political power of the ruling class, rather than the good of its citizens. Not a mystery as to where this winds up. (Sorry for the rant).
 
RCIAGraduate said:
Would you be supportive of a government-funded system that works to ensure counseling and therapy for all who may need it? It ideally, should be supplemented by therapy and counseling from other groups like Churches and Charities though.

Thoughts? Feedback?
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This won’t happen, it’s far too expensive. To illustrate, just look at the Canadian system.

Canada only offers free mental health treatment if you are in a crisis, likely admitted to a hospital. You can visit a psychiatrist to get a prescription but if you want to see a therapist or psychologist, it’s on your dime.
 
Universal access means tax-payer funded, not “free.” So no, I wouldn’t be in favor of it any more than I’m in favor of “universal” healthcare which isn’t free for any of us, is run by an uncaring bureaucracy that favors some over others and puts people on interminably long waiting lists for the most basic care. Think VA hospitals. No thank you. Our healthcare system has been screwed up enough as it is.
 
It should be treated as an equal and integral component of medical care.

I generally in favor of single payer “socialist” healthcare, only because the private healthcare system had the past two hundred years to get it right and didn’t. So I think they had their chances and now have to step aside and let someone else deliver what they couldn’t.
 
on_the_hill said:
It should be treated as an equal and integral component of medical care.

I generally in favor of single payer “socialist” healthcare, only because the private healthcare system had the past two hundred years to get it right and didn’t. So I think they had their chances and now have to step aside and let someone else deliver what they couldn’t.
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No, people paying for their own health care, mostly via insurance, hasn’t been tried for two hundred years and failed. It’s be interfered with by the government and failed in the last 50 years or so. Socialized medicine doesn’t work where it has been implemented. There’s no reason be believe it would work better in the US than in Canada or England. The US is a much more populated country with far greater diversity of persons, all vying for the same government, that is taxpayer, money. Nope, not gonna fly–not ever.
 
No. What universal access means is government controlled. Government control leads to higher costs, a misallocation of resources, and less health care.
on_the_hill said:
I generally in favor of single payer “socialist” healthcare, only because the private healthcare system had the past two hundred years to get it right and didn’t. So I think they had their chances and now have to step aside and let someone else deliver what they couldn’t.
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Government control doesn’t lead to universal unlimited access to all the best health care we want when we want it. In the US health care hasn’t been a free market for a long time. Saying the market failed is not reflective of facts. As an example, employer provided health insurance came about because of government. With wage control during WWII employers started offering health insurance as a way around the restrictions. So a terrible system arose where insurance was tied to a job. Then you have Obamacare to fix a mess that was really created by the government.
 
It would have to function better than The Veterans Administration.
 
Well, 200 years, 50 years, whatever. It doesn’t matter. The private system wasn’t working. Without govt intervention, the market wouldn’t have provided for people.

If I can’t afford a car, I don’t by a car. If I can’t afford a tv, I don’t by a tv. If I can’t afford healthcare, I die.

The market doesn’t care who lives and who dies. To stay survive the market, which is the only reason for a private enterprise to exist, private enterprise has to make business decisions that aren’t necessarily altruistic.

So if we were to wake up in a magical land where the govt didn’t “interfere” in healthcare insurance, I’m pretty sure market efficiencies would count a whole lot of sick people as acceptable losses. Just as the market is willing to accept unemployed Americans as a necessary consequence of employing low wage workers overseas.

As for taxes to pay for it, that’s simply a market cost of doing business as a person living in the U.S.
 
on_the_hill said:
Well, 200 years, 50 years, whatever. It doesn’t matter. The private system wasn’t working. Without govt intervention, the market wouldn’t have provided for people.

If I can’t afford a car, I don’t by a car. If I can’t afford a tv, I don’t by a tv. If I can’t afford healthcare, I die.

The market doesn’t care who lives and who dies. To stay survive the market, which is the only reason for a private enterprise to exist, private enterprise has to make business decisions that aren’t necessarily altruistic.

So if we were to wake up in a magical land where the govt didn’t “interfere” in healthcare insurance, I’m pretty sure market efficiencies would count a whole lot of sick people as acceptable losses. Just as the market is willing to accept unemployed Americans as a necessary consequence of employing low wage workers overseas.

As for taxes to pay for it, that’s simply a market cost of doing business as a person living in the U.S.
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You’ve got this all wrong, my friend. Independent doctors who want to make a living make it possible for people to have low cost health care. because they compete for patient’s dollars. It is the government and big business, i.e., the insurance companies, that doesn’t care about who lives and who dies.
 
Della said:
You’ve got this all wrong, my friend. Independent doctors who want to make a living make it possible for people to have low cost health care. because they compete for patient’s dollars. It is the government and big business, i.e., the insurance companies, that doesn’t care about who lives and who dies.
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Not exactly, I don’t. I happen to know a GP who charges less to patients who pay in cash. The idea that the healthcare market will be operated by independent doctors is farfetched. It’s always going to be either big healthcare companies and/or the government that control the marketplace.
 
on_the_hill said:
Not exactly, I don’t. I happen to know a GP who charges less to patients who pay in cash. The idea that the healthcare market will be operated by independent doctors is farfetched. It’s always going to be either big healthcare companies and/or the government that control the marketplace.
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No, it’s only farfetched if we buy into the idea that healthcare ought to be accessible only through government and big business. We can reject that model, and we need to, in order to get the best healthcare possible.
 
Della said:
No, it’s only farfetched if we buy into the idea that healthcare ought to be accessible only through government and big business. We can reject that model, and we need to, in order to get the best healthcare possible.
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Even in your pay cash scenario, people can’t afford $200k+ for a major event so you still need to share the cost risk for major surgery, thus you still need insurance. And frankly, we had an affordable solution for that before Obamacare. Catastrophic coverage was quite affordable. Big business was working but big Govt caused the price increase.
 
Theo520 said:
Even in your pay cash scenario, people can’t afford $200k+ for a major event so you still need to share the cost risk for major surgery, thus you still need insurance. And frankly, we had an affordable solution for that before Obamacare. Catastrophic coverage was quite affordable. Big business was working but big Govt caused the price increase.
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Indeed, but most people go to the doctor for preventative care more than major event care. That would be perfectly affordable if the insurance companies and government would just butt out.
 
Della said:
Indeed, but most people go to the doctor for preventative care more than major event care. That would be perfectly affordable if the insurance companies and government would just butt out.
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Like I said, we had a good solution a couple years ago called ‘catastrophic coverage’

You paid out of pocket for preventative care and the insurance covered the big things. It offered the best of both worlds.
 
Theo520 said:
Like I said, we had a good solution a couple years ago called ‘catastrophic coverage’

You paid out of pocket for preventative care and the insurance covered the big things. It offered the best of both worlds.
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Yes, it would make the best of both worlds, but you know how it is, if an insurance company can make money by imposing insurance for the littlest procedures and check-ups, it will, and they have–to our financial determent and their profit.
 
Theo520 said:
Like I said, we had a good solution a couple years ago called ‘catastrophic coverage’

You paid out of pocket for preventative care and the insurance covered the big things. It offered the best of both worlds.
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Yes, and you weren’t required to pay for things you didn’t need. For example as a single-celibate man your policy didn’t have to cover birth control/abortion/sex-changematernity care/obstetrics etc. etc. etc.
 
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