[Wheatfield]

We have a lot of work to do with our health care system, but simply changing who pays does not address the cost.

Actually, it does. You still have blinders on regarding how it is done in the parts of the world that have adopted single payer. You come up with the occasional failure or weakness of the system, and write it off as a bad system, while ignoring the overwhelming successes within a single payer system.
We spend far less per capita than the USA does on health care, and overall, we have much better health care. If we spent as much per head on health care here as you guys do with private insurance and medicare/medicaid combined, your health care system would look like some Medieval bunch of guys in robes drilling holes in people's heads to release their demons and applying leaches to cleanse their blood.
But instead, you scour the internet until you find one or two biased, and probably untrue entries on someone's right wing blog that you think makes a point, and post it as how a single payer system cannot possibly work.

[GeneV]

But instead, you scour the internet until you find one or two biased, and probably untrue entries on someone's right wing blog that you think makes a point, and post it as how a single payer system cannot possibly work.

Yeah, I even heard that some people in countries with national health care systems get sick and die.

[Parallax]

Yeah, I even heard that some people in countries with national health care systems get sick and die.

That's a malicious rumor started by the anti single payer crowd.

[Wheatfield]

Yeah, I even heard that some people in countries with national health care systems get sick and die.

That's a malicious rumor started by the anti single payer crowd.

No, it isn't. Single payer won't cure cancer, for example, although I have a friend who is now a five time cancer survivor and another who has beaten it back something like 8 times now, and both are enjoying good lifestyles. I do wonder how many times they would have been treated under a private insurance scheme though. At what point would the company cut it's losses (and effectively end their lives).

[GeneV]

No, it isn't. Single payer won't cure cancer, for example, although I have a friend who is now a five time cancer survivor and another who has beaten it back something like 8 times now, and both are enjoying good lifestyles. I do wonder how many times they would have been treated under a private insurance scheme though. At what point would the company cut it's losses (and effectively end their lives).

Of course, I was joking. I also suspect that you have a better chance of surviving cancer with fully paid medical help rather than worrying about where the treatment will come from.

[Parallax]

I also suspect that you have a better chance of surviving cancer with fully paid medical help rather than worrying about where the treatment will come from.

I think that's a pretty safe bet. Stress, or lack of, plays a significant role in recovery from injury and illness.

[Winder]

Actually, it does. You still have blinders on regarding how it is done in the parts of the world that have adopted single payer. You come up with the occasional failure or weakness of the system, and write it off as a bad system, while ignoring the overwhelming successes within a single payer system.
We spend far less per capita than the USA does on health care, and overall, we have much better health care. If we spent as much per head on health care here as you guys do with private insurance and medicare/medicaid combined, your health care system would look like some Medieval bunch of guys in robes drilling holes in people's heads to release their demons and applying leaches to cleanse their blood.
But instead, you scour the internet until you find one or two biased, and probably untrue entries on someone's right wing blog that you think makes a point, and post it as how a single payer system cannot possibly work.

We have plenty of problems with our system. We have a shortage of doctors as it is and we just added 20 million people to the customer base. Healthcare is a limited resource. As demand rises so does the cost. Changing who pays for that cost does nothing to address the the cost itself. Our existing Medicare (single payer system) has been a disaster. Cost has been out of control and patient care is awful.

Simple price comparisons are not very good. People in Manhattan pay a lot more for a gallon of gas than I pay, does that mean they are getting better gas? Obviously not. Costs can vary widely for identical products and services. We have runaway costs for a couple of reasons. We don't have enough doctors (1/4 of our doctors are foreign born & educated). We don't have enough medical schools to keep up with the demand for doctors. State regulations restrict who can provide care. There are a lot of services that could be preformed by a nurse practitioner at a much lower cost without sacrificing quality of care.

The Patient Factor The Patient Factor is a website with forums where you can talk to plenty of Canadians who are getting left out of the "universal system". People who are sick and looking for ways to get help. People who are traveling outside of Canada for treatment. It is not really hard to find people who are unhappy with the Canadian system. And the quality of care might be great for the people who can get it, but looking at how Canada rations healthcare, not everyone is getting it.

Access to Mayo Clinic Services in Canada - MyCare Insurance Program Mayo Clinic has started a program in Canada to provide insurance for people who want to come to the USA for healthcare. Must be a market for people who can afford it..... If Canada's system is "much better" why do people pay more to leave?
The MyCare Insurance Program† offers Canadians an unprecedented health insurance benefit featuring medical expertise from Mayo Clinic. When diagnosed with a serious illness or major orthopedic concern, MyCare offers you and your family access to a timely first or second medical opinion from Mayo Clinic, and if required, additional diagnostics or on-site care or treatment at a Mayo Clinic campus (Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ; Rochester, MN; Jacksonville, FL).

I am glad you are happy with your system and the quality you receive for the price. Please realize that there are millions of Americans who are happy with their system. Yes, we want to improve the quality and lower the cost. If I honestly though I could get better care for less money from my government I would not oppose it. The only people who get "good care" from the government in this country are the special interest groups, super-PACs, and mega-corporations. The taxpayers typically get screwed.

New CNN Poll: 59% Oppose Obamacare
• 62 percent say the amount they pay for medical care will increase.
• 47 percent think they’ll be worse off when it becomes law.
• 70 percent believe the federal budget deficit will go up — contrary to repeated claims from Democrats.
• 56 percent view Obamacare as creating too much government involvement in health care.

[Wheatfield]

We have plenty of problems with our system. We have a shortage of doctors as it is and we just added 20 million people to the customer base. Healthcare is a limited resource. As demand rises so does the cost. Changing who pays for that cost does nothing to address the the cost itself. Our existing Medicare (single payer system) has been a disaster. Cost has been out of control and patient care is awful.

You just seem to dense to get it. You have a health care system that skims billions of dollars off the top for corporate profit. A single payer (government sponsored) system doesn't have that profit motive. The "shareholder" is the patient, not a stock owner.
Think of what your health care system could be if you cut out the extra costs due to the the redundancy of several hundred insurance companies, and could also harvest what they are skimming off the top in profits, and put that money right back into building hospitals, training health care professionals and hiring doctors and nurses.

Simple price comparisons are not very good. People in Manhattan pay a lot more for a gallon of gas than I pay, does that mean they are getting better gas? Obviously not. Costs can vary widely for identical products and services. We have runaway costs for a couple of reasons. We don't have enough doctors (1/4 of our doctors are foreign born & educated). We don't have enough medical schools to keep up with the demand for doctors. State regulations restrict who can provide care. There are a lot of services that could be preformed by a nurse practitioner at a much lower cost without sacrificing quality of care.

Simple price comparisons are immaterial. A doctor will get paid more in Saskatoon than they will in Montreal because it costs more to live in Montreal, and wages in general are higher there.

The Patient Factor The Patient Factor is a website with forums where you can talk to plenty of Canadians who are getting left out of the "universal system". People who are sick and looking for ways to get help. People who are traveling outside of Canada for treatment. It is not really hard to find people who are unhappy with the Canadian system. And the quality of care might be great for the people who can get it, but looking at how Canada rations healthcare, not everyone is getting it.

Access to Mayo Clinic Services in Canada - MyCare Insurance Program Mayo Clinic has started a program in Canada to provide insurance for people who want to come to the USA for healthcare. Must be a market for people who can afford it..... If Canada's system is "much better" why do people pay more to leave?
The MyCare Insurance Program† offers Canadians an unprecedented health insurance benefit featuring medical expertise from Mayo Clinic. When diagnosed with a serious illness or major orthopedic concern, MyCare offers you and your family access to a timely first or second medical opinion from Mayo Clinic, and if required, additional diagnostics or on-site care or treatment at a Mayo Clinic campus (Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ; Rochester, MN; Jacksonville, FL).

I am glad you are happy with your system and the quality you receive for the price. Please realize that there are millions of Americans who are happy with their system. Yes, we want to improve the quality and lower the cost. If I honestly though I could get better care for less money from my government I would not oppose it. The only people who get "good care" from the government in this country are the special interest groups, super-PACs, and mega-corporations. The taxpayers typically get screwed.

New CNN Poll: 59% Oppose Obamacare
• 62 percent say the amount they pay for medical care will increase.
• 47 percent think they’ll be worse off when it becomes law.
• 70 percent believe the federal budget deficit will go up — contrary to repeated claims from Democrats.
• 56 percent view Obamacare as creating too much government involvement in health care.

And again, you come up with simplistic right wing scare monger websites of dubious honesty and polls from peole who have probably bought into the right wing scare stories.
Sorry, that dog don't hunt.

[jeffkrol]

Three Critical Things Left Out of the Health Care Reform Debate - Forbes

[GeneV]

It is interesting how, on the one hand, opponents of the ACA talk about how long and complex the bill is, and on the other will focus only on the individual mandate, as if it were the only important part of the Act.

[stevewig]

This is the same old downside or problem with Democracy everywhere - the people need to be carried kicking and screaming towards their own self interest. Special Interests excel in making sure that that is true and they do a real good job of enlisting "we the people" to fight against their own good.

The masses are their own worst enemy and they never seem to realize this and that process is exactly what is occurring now with "Obamacare".

[GeneV]

You just seem to dense to get it. You have a health care system that skims billions of dollars off the top for corporate profit. A single payer (government sponsored) system doesn't have that profit motive. The "shareholder" is the patient, not a stock owner.

Well, Winder's post was a nice summary of all the right wing misinformation on health care in one location. As you note, it is very clear that private insurance costs more. Our system has gone so far as to have Medicare pay 10-12% more if the patient involves a private company.

We are # 52 in doctors per capita, but the UK, Canada and New Zealand have fewer doctors per capita and Australia is ranked 47. Physicians per 1,000 people statistics - Countries compared - NationMaster All these countries have roughly similar cultural roots and lifestyles, but manage to insure everyone through the government for less government expenditure per capita than our government spends to care for a fraction of our people. The number of doctors is not the main issue. One thing the other former British colonies do differently is that doctors don't come from medical school with more school debt than the median mortgage. That definitely increases cost.

We have been over this 100 times on this board, but the fact that some want to pay more and come here says very little about a comparison in quality. The fact that some will pay for a Mercedes does not mean the Ford isn't getting you where you need to go. We have more people traveling away to get care than coming in. Does this mean our care is worse than popular destinations like India, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc.?

[les3547]

Besides all the deceptive PR spread by the right wing, and the amount of mindless self deception indulged in to convince themselves the ACA takes away people's rights, what really irks me is that the vast majority of those protesting already have health insurance, will likely realize lower costs because of ACA, and will enjoy a host of new benefits (like safety from being dropped from insurance). So what is it exactly they are against except all the uninsured finally having a means to get health care?

[Wheatfield]

So what is it exactly they are against except all the uninsured finally having a means to get health care?

Misinformed and misdirected greed.
They would rather pay a dollar and a half for something as long as no one else benefits from it, rather than a dollar and have someone else see a nickel's benefit from their dollar.

[Winder]

You just seem to dense to get it. You have a health care system that skims billions of dollars off the top for corporate profit. A single payer (government sponsored) system doesn't have that profit motive. The "shareholder" is the patient, not a stock owner.
Think of what your health care system could be if you cut out the extra costs due to the the redundancy of several hundred insurance companies, and could also harvest what they are skimming off the top in profits, and put that money right back into building hospitals, training health care professionals and hiring doctors and nurses.

I don't think you "get it". In every industry where free market "profit motive" is allowed to work we get lower prices. The competition pushes out higher priced competitors. Amazon is a good example of a free market company pushing prices down while expanding services. You are right in that corporate interests skim billions off. They do it through government regulations and with the governments blessing. Healthcare is the second most regulated industry in this country, with billions spent on compliance. You don't have redundancy in a free market system.

And again, you come up with simplistic right wing scare monger websites of dubious honesty and polls from peole who have probably bought into the right wing scare stories.
Sorry, that dog don't hunt.

I'm pretty sure any of them I post you are going to say the same thing. Amazing how many of them there are.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news...011-ff0712.pdf

The argument that profit is a problem is asinine. The Soviet Union cut out all profit in its system and look where it got them. Profit is what drives people to provide a high level of care quickly and with little waste. In a free market system waste and inefficiency destroy profit.