Infrastructure breakdown

[evanescence]

Originally Posted by Americano

I fail to see your position. Countries with UHC provide health care for all citizens, including high risk individuals, for a far lower per-capita cost than the US, who by your own admission, excludes certain people. I don't think you have any understanding of the financial dynamics of US health care including the profit motive, so I'm done with this discussion.

Actually, I do understand. Profit motive is behind everything. But you people act as if UHC is this great system, and yet you've failed to explain how the US government, which has lost trillions of dollars in a single year, can manage it. I don't deny what your sources claim, not that under reporting expenses is impossible. This source shows the weakness of the various the systems you mentioned. For one thing, a lack of incentive (i.e. high salary for doctors) reduces competition. That is never good. Either way, it's not that I disapprove of UHC. I just don't believe that the US government can implement such a policy effectively. Also, the premiums these people pay are more expensive than our premiums of approx. $250 a month for healthcare, plus co pays and deductibles.

No need to get frustrated. You've hardly made an effort to support your position here without getting pissed off. I don't get it.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by evanescence

...Also, the premiums these people pay are more expensive than our premiums of approx. $250 a month for healthcare, plus co pays and deductibles.

So who is paying the lion's share of your healthcare policy premiums? You certainly aren't at that rate (assuming a family plan).

Either it is paid by some employer or it is paid for by the government. But $3000 per year generally won't even buy single person coverage in the USA.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by evanescence

This source shows the weakness of the various the systems you mentioned.

Looks like cherry picking. The British and Japanese UHC systems are considered to be among the worst UHC systems in the [western] world.

France has the generally considered best UHC system in the world and it is most applicable to the US situation for various reasons of structure. Canada's UHC is also highly relevant given the cultural similarities between USA and Canada. I notice the source ignores these two. Data on these two sources are readily available and tend to make the US healthcare look bad.

P.S. Gotta wonder what has happened to PBS. It used to be a highly reputable media source, but over the last five years, I've found it has become indistinguishable from all the rest of the US media (pushing the same memes that serve the ruling elites and playing propaganda games with everything else). Pity that because PBS was the ONLY US media source that wasn't routinely dismissed for partisan bullshit. Now it seems like it has earned entry to that club.

[The Drunk Guy]

Originally Posted by Michael

P.S. Gotta wonder what has happened to PBS. It used to be a highly reputable media source, but over the last five years, I've found it has become indistinguishable from all the rest of the US media (pushing the same memes that serve the ruling elites and playing propaganda games with everything else). Pity that because PBS was the ONLY US media source that wasn't routinely dismissed for partisan bullshit. Now it seems like it has earned entry to that club.

NPR and PBS have long been labeled 'Liberal elite media.' Kentucky's PBS network, KET, hardly covers the news at all, but they provide some beautiful documentaries about the state. NPR is the news-heavy source and provides some of the best non-partisan work in America, but gets bogged down trying to give both sides a 'fair' argument. When one side has a completely faulty argument, they still sway to cater to the Republicans because they'll do anything for donations.

[Americano]

Originally Posted by Michael

Yes, that's doubly annoying listening to Americans talk about US 'free-market' healthcare system and not acknowledging the massive (hidden) taxpayer subsidies that drive it.

US spends more tax dollars on healthcare per capita than any other western nation. This is in addition to the US spending more private money on healthcare per capita than any other western nation. In spite of all this massive spending, US citizens get less healthcare per person than any other western nation and USA routinely ranks in last in comparative healthcare studies with other western nations.

I have yet to read or hear a rational, unbiased argument against UHC in a developed country with a work force. Government subsidy fanboys for the private sector amaze me with their stupendous rationalizations and the general public gobbles them up as fact.

[Americano]

Originally Posted by Michael

So who is paying the lion's share of your healthcare policy premiums? You certainly aren't at that rate (assuming a family plan).

Either it is paid by some employer or it is paid for by the government. But $3000 per year generally won't even buy single person coverage in the USA.

Average US single person health insurance policy 2009 - $4,824
Average US family health insurance policy 2009 - $13,375

Source

We're back to those tax free subsidies interested parties hide behind. As a former corporate officer, I loved it. We had no deductibles, no co-pays and no lifetime caps.

Few people on group insurance plans are aware of the lifetime benefit cap. Most for line workers have shrunk to around $250k, peanuts with cancer or major surgery costs.