Would you support universal access to counseling and therapy?

[Della]

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-change[maternity care/obstetrics etc. etc. etc.

Yes, ridiculous what they make us pay for, isn’t it? It’s the same for us. We’re well past child-bearing years, and yet we have to pay for pregnancy benefits for those who are.
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[styrgwillidar]

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?

From the US perspective-

19.3 Trillion in debt
102 Trillion in unfunded liabilities

Top components of the budget year to date:

1. Medicare Medicaid 1 Trillion
2. Social Security 900 Billion
3. Defense 586 Billion
4. Income Security 307 Billion (welfare/food stamps/aid)
5. Federal Pensions 265 Billion
6. Interest on the Debt 243 Billion

usdebtclock.org/

How do we pay for it? And I mean we, as in this current generation, not increasing debt on future generations- them paying for more of our largesse.

 

[Theo520]

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-change[maternity care/obstetrics etc. etc. etc.

Obama and ACA killed Catastrophic Coverage, not the insurance industry.
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[Della]

Obama and ACA killed Catastrophic Coverage, not the insurance industry.

They forced this on the industry, sacrificing things we really need in order to cover things we don’t need.

 

[exnihilo]

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.

The government certainly doesn’t care if you live or die. It certainly isn’t altruistic.

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.

There is actually a private surgical center in Oklahoma City I believe. It has very good prices. Actually, the key fact is it has prices. You can see them on their website. Try getting prices from a typical hospital or doctor. That can be a chore and if you get a price it is almost never accurate. Most medical practices work completely apart from the market. They don’t provide prices and the patient doesn’t ask for them. Such a system isn’t a free market but most like a socialist/communist system. The US system that has ‘failed’ is not a free market and is not really being replaced. So it won’t get better.

 

[Theo520]

There is actually a private surgical center in Oklahoma City I believe. It has very good prices. Actually, the key fact is it has prices. You can see them on their website. Try getting prices from a typical hospital or doctor. That can be a chore and if you get a price it is almost never accurate. Most medical practices work completely apart from the market. They don’t provide prices and the patient doesn’t ask for them. Such a system isn’t a free market but most like a socialist/communist system. The US system that has ‘failed’ is not a free market and is not really being replaced. So it won’t get better.

You nailed it, with the current system nobody includes pricing in their decision making on where to go. It’s nearly impossible to compare typical treatment costs.

 

[on_the_hill]

The government certainly doesn’t care if you live or die. It certainly isn’t altruistic.

I reject your cynicism and offer instead the trillions of dollars that are spent to help people become productive members of society: WIC, education funding, rehabilitation programs of every sort, environmental oversight and regulations, water quality oversight, immunization programs, spending on basic science and research…the Bill of Rights?

There will be disagreements over how to spend, where to spend, how much to spend, which programs are needed and which are harmful, but you can’t honestly say that the government doesn’t care whether people live or die.

Or to frame it cynically, if everyone dies, who pays the taxes?

 

[RPRPsych]

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?

No. Governmental control means that the government gets to decide what forms of therapy get accepted, and gets to exercise control over the content of the therapy sessions to a greater or larger extent.

There is a regrettable tendency, these days, to view “counseling and therapy” as completely safe and universally effective, in contrast to “dubious” pharmacological therapies. As a matter of fact, badly administered, amoral or “client-centered” therapies can do more harm than good, and therapist exploitation of clients can take numerous forms. We need to view all forms of treatment for mental illness with a critical eye, because they are based on inadequate explanatory models which are often driven by business interests or ideology.

 

[DarkLight]

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.

It offers the best of both worlds if you happen to be a healthy adult who doesn’t generally have anything wrong with you. We would at least need some provision for people like me (public or private) who can’t afford costs of regular care out of pocket, due to long-term health issues. And I don’t think going back to the days where people like me lived in the attic for life because they couldn’t ever afford to move out on their own would be the right move.

 

[Della]

It offers the best of both worlds if you happen to be a healthy adult who doesn’t generally have anything wrong with you. We would at least need some provision for people like me (public or private) who can’t afford costs of regular care out of pocket, due to long-term health issues. And I don’t think going back to the days where people like me lived in the attic for life because they couldn’t ever afford to move out on their own would be the right move.

Naturally, people with your health needs ought to be helped, however, the current system isn’t set up that way. We have to pay for everyone’s health insurance, all their health wants and desires, not just needs. It’s seriously broken. Adding counseling and therapy would be fine if we weren’t already paying for things we don’t need, as I and others have cited. You need to take this up with your representative, who probably had a hand in forcing insurance to pay for things only so many people need, but worse, for things they merely want that all of us are being forced to pay for.

 

[DarkLight]

Naturally, people with your health needs ought to be helped, however, the current system isn’t set up that way. We have to pay for everyone’s health insurance, all their health wants and desires, not just needs. It’s seriously broken. Adding counseling and therapy would be fine if we weren’t already paying for things we don’t need, as I and others have cited. You need to take this up with your representative, who probably had a hand in forcing insurance to pay for things only so many people need, but worse, for things they merely want that all of us are being forced to pay for.

I think part of the problem is that what’s a “need” and what’s a “want” is going to vary depending on who you ask. So for example, I’ve had on this forum people say weekly counseling is a “want”, despite being pretty much medical standard for what I have. Part of the long-standing issue we’ve had with our health system is seeing preventative care as a “want”, which led to the poor not getting preventative care and ultimately driving costs up.

 

[Della]

I think part of the problem is that what’s a “need” and what’s a “want” is going to vary depending on who you ask. So for example, I’ve had on this forum people say weekly counseling is a “want”, despite being pretty much medical standard for what I have. Part of the long-standing issue we’ve had with our health system is seeing preventative care as a “want”, which led to the poor not getting preventative care and ultimately driving costs up.

I’m talking about birth control pills and elective surgeries to change gender and things like that. Those are electives, not necessary treatments. Any that are necessary, as determined by a competent medical professional, ought to be covered. If we had the latter, no one would have medications their doctors prescribed turned down by insurance companies who don’t cover them because of the cost of covering all the “want” treatments, as well as the “need” ones.

 

[DarkLight]

I’m talking about birth control pills and elective surgeries to change gender and things like that. Those are electives, not necessary treatments. Any that are necessary, as determined by a competent medical professional, ought to be covered. If we had the latter, no one would have medications their doctors prescribed turned down by insurance companies who don’t cover them because of the cost of covering all the “want” treatments, as well as the “need” ones.

That’s my point though - the people who are advocating for them see them as “needs.” They see surgeries to change gender as psychologically necessary in the same way antidepressants are. They see birth control as an important part of preventative medicine. We see it differently, but it’s not as simple as “need” versus “want” - the problem is enough people do see these things as needs.

 

[Della]

That’s my point though - the people who are advocating for them see them as “needs.” They see surgeries to change gender as psychologically necessary in the same way antidepressants are. They see birth control as an important part of preventative medicine. We see it differently, but it’s not as simple as “need” versus “want” - the problem is enough people do see these things as needs.

It doesn’t matter how either side sees these things as wants or needs, it is the insurance companies that used to decide which treatments are elective and which are necessary. But not any more. Now it’s the administration that is dictating elective treatments as necessary, which it has no business doing. It is government overreach. This is why we need to vote in an administration that won’t be telling insurance companies that they must cover electives as if they are necessary and will put into law that no administration can do so. We all know who would continue this administrations policies of dictating to insurance companies and who wouldn’t.

 

[DarkLight]

It doesn’t matter how either side sees these things as wants or needs, it is the insurance companies that used to decide which treatments are elective and which are necessary. But not any more. Now it’s the administration that is dictating elective treatments as necessary, which it has no business doing. It is government overreach. This is why we need to vote in an administration that won’t be telling insurance companies that they must cover electives as if they are necessary and will put into law that no administration can do so. We all know who would continue this administrations policies of dictating to insurance companies and who wouldn’t.

To be honest I think allowing insurance companies to decide tends to swing things too far the other way. I come from a family with rarer medical conditions and a lot of sensitivities to common medications. I have seen far too many necessary treatments turned down because the insurance company decided it was “elective” - like classifying a procedure to stop skin pain as “cosmetic surgery”, or deciding that since there were medications that they covered for a particular disorder (even though the person in question couldn’t tolerate them), that a medication the patient could actually tolerate was unnecessary and wouldn’t be covered.

The fundamental problem with for-profit insurance is that its primary incentive is to maximize profits, not to keep people healthy. Where refusing treatment to sick people is in line with maximizing profits, the insurance companies will do so unless some regulation stops them.

 

[Little_Sheep]

I would like single payer for ALL healthcare. Mental health is equally as important as physical health - indeed, I don’t think the two can be separated.

 

[Della]

To be honest I think allowing insurance companies to decide tends to swing things too far the other way. I come from a family with rarer medical conditions and a lot of sensitivities to common medications. I have seen far too many necessary treatments turned down because the insurance company decided it was “elective” - like classifying a procedure to stop skin pain as “cosmetic surgery”, or deciding that since there were medications that they covered for a particular disorder (even though the person in question couldn’t tolerate them), that a medication the patient could actually tolerate was unnecessary and wouldn’t be covered.

The fundamental problem with for-profit insurance is that its primary incentive is to maximize profits, not to keep people healthy. Where refusing treatment to sick people is in line with maximizing profits, the insurance companies will do so unless some regulation stops them.

I wish there was such a thing as a perfect system, but there isn’t. G. K. Chesterton called big business and big government “Hudge and Gudge”–he was not being complimentary.

He advocated small businesses run directly by their owners. This would mean, as it did at one time, doctors prescribed what their patients needed and pharmacists filled those prescriptions. When medicine became big business it became far too complicated. Add interfering governmental “oversight” and it became even worse (although the intention was the opposite). Hudge and Gudge now work hand in hand to make money for themselves at our expense, and the worst part of it is? We, in large part, did it to ourselves.

 

[Thorolfr]

No. What universal access means is government controlled. Government control leads to higher costs, a misallocation of resources, and less health care.

Medicare is a very popular program, it’s government run, and is generally more efficient than private healthcare.

According to CMS, for common benefits, Medicare spending rose by an average of 4.3 percent each year between 1997 and 2009, while private insurance premiums grew at a rate of 6.5 percent per year.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, administrative costs in Medicare are only about 2 percent of operating expenditures. Defenders of the insurance industry estimate administrative costs as 17 percent of revenue.

healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/

 

[DarkLight]

I wish there was such a thing as a perfect system, but there isn’t. G. K. Chesterton called big business and big government “Hudge and Gudge”–he was not being complimentary.

He advocated small businesses run directly by their owners. This would mean, as it did at one time, doctors prescribed what their patients needed and pharmacists filled those prescriptions. When medicine became big business it became far too complicated. Add interfering governmental “oversight” and it became even worse (although the intention was the opposite). Hudge and Gudge now work hand in hand to make money for themselves at our expense, and the worst part of it is? We, in large part, did it to ourselves.

Part of the issue here is that the amount of things we can do in medicine has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 50 to 100 years. Many of these things require expensive machines and special equipment. Many more require special knowledge that’s beyond what your average family doctor can reasonably be expected to learn. All that is going to necessarily move beyond the small business model - you just can’t expect a small medical business to maintain, say, an MRI machine.

 

[Della]

Part of the issue here is that the amount of things we can do in medicine has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 50 to 100 years. Many of these things require expensive machines and special equipment. Many more require special knowledge that’s beyond what your average family doctor can reasonably be expected to learn. All that is going to necessarily move beyond the small business model - you just can’t expect a small medical business to maintain, say, an MRI machine.

Which is where co-ops come in. Medical clinics can share expenses by sharing equipment, etc. It’s not impossible to do. Neither Hudge or Gudge needs to over our healthcare options.