Socialized Healthcare Working Much Better Than the Current US Healthcare System

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Oct 30, 2014
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I'd like to make a case for socialized healthcare, as a person who's been part of a society that has it for my entire life. I believe in it, I've seen it, used it, been part of it, and now I'd like to talk about it. I'll dive right in.

One of the main reasons many US citizens are skeptical about socialized healthcare is its cost to the taxpayer. Yet Americans, currently, pay, per person, the highest prices in developed nations for healthcare.

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The American government also spend more per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation.

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You would think therefore that American healthcare would rate among the world's best. The contrary is actually true. According to a report by the Commonwealth Fund based on findings by an international panel of experts from the World Health Organization, the US ranks among the lowest in terms of quality of care, access, efficiency and equity, while the NHS, the socialized healthcare system in the UK, was placed at the very top of the list -- the best health service in the world. This rating has been made possible by some of the cheapest taxpayer costs per capita in the world, free prescriptions for every single UK citizen regardless of circumstance, free eyecare at every stage except for the purchase of certain upmarket focal frames and free treatment in both hospitals and local surgeries at the point of contact. Also note that in comparing the lower-middle class and poorest of citizens, Uk citizens are actually given more tax exemptions and tax free earnings (something the lowest earners in the US do not benefit from, as they are taxed 10%).

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While many Americans also shy away from the idea of socialized healthcare due to horror stories such as those of 'death panels', patients waiting on ridiculous waiting lists for emergency procedures and lying in lobbies for hours with blood coming out their ears, these stories are most often entirely fabricated. AS Dr Alan Maryon-Davis, President of the UK Faculty of Public Health states "The horrific thing about the American system is that there are tens of millions of people without health insurance. We spend less on health in terms of GDP than America but if you look at health indices, especially for life expectancy, we generally have better figures than they do in America."

American pro-privitization lobbyists also often argue that many UK citizens are against the NHS. In fact, in British Future's latest ''State of the Nation'' report, here, an overwhelming majority of Britons of all classes and colours indicated that the NHS is the one thing above all that makes them most proud to be British. The NHS was formed from the calling of the British people for more affordable healthcare in a time when only the richest could really afford it (I remember my father telling me that my grandfather avoided the doctor because it cost too much money to go. He died of cancer, diagnosed at stage three when it was already in several of his internal organs -- an indirect result of his inability to pay). The NHS is a source of immense national pride here in the UK for these very reasons; it gives access to all people, regardless of financial ability.

Finally, as a counter to claims that the NHS' procedures are outdated or obsolete and its doctors undereducated and employed on the basis of necessity rather than academic achievement, the NHS has in fact one of the highest standards for employment of any UK institution; UK medical schools Oxford and Cambridge Universities are placed 2nd and 3rd in the world for medicine by topuniversities.com, second only to Harvard overall in 2013, while in the 2014 rankings UK University ''Imperial College London'' joins the top four along with Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. The Times World Ranking puts Oxford medical in the number one spot in the world, and most graduates remain in the UK. The NHS has also recieved funding to expand its already substantial research and development facilities in what is set to make it arguably the most advanced, forward moving medical research body of any country in the world.

Socialized medicine can and does work. I can testify personally to it.

Also note below a doctored version of the above report, presumably by those against the NHS. The original above, is from the Independent.
 

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crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
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#2
One of the main reasons many US citizens are skeptical about socialized healthcare is...they take a look at the DMV or the Post Office.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
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#3
One of the main reasons many US citizens are skeptical about socialized healthcare is...they take a look at the DMV or the Post Office.
Or the IRS, or the Dept. of Education, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, US House of Representatives, US Senate, White House, the Supreme Court, Homeland Security........ and many more.
 
Nov 26, 2011
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Socialised healthcare is legalised theft.


Not everyone wants to be part of a universal healthcare insurance program. Not everyone wants the state to steal from their neighbour either.

Socialised healthcare eventually necessitates "sin taxes" as it relates to diet and fitness in an attempt to rectify the burden that the irresponsible place on the responsible.

The Bible teaches, thou shalt not steal.
 

TheAristocat

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2011
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The NHS is a source of immense national pride here in the UK for these very reasons; it gives access to all people, regardless of financial ability.
There are a lot of problems with the American health care system, but access to care is not one of them. Let me illustrate with an example:

Patient A has health insurance. They go to the doctor and get billed $150. Their insurance covers $75, therefore they only have to pay $75. They can afford this, so they pay. Patient B does not have health insurance. They go to the doctor for the same service and get billed $300. They have no insurance to help with any portion of this fee. Therefore they cannot afford to pay the full amount. Therefore a payment plan is set up where they pay in increments of $75 until the full fee is paid off without interest accumulating. Both A and B receive the same quality of care, but B is charged more because he's not in the "insurance loop" so-to-speak. And it takes B a longer time to pay off his bills.

Maybe there are some outlandish rumors circulating about socialized health care, but the same is true of America's current system. Unless I'm mistaken (and there's that possibility), socialist advocates of "affordable care" want to portray the current health care system as though one can't receive the health care they need unless they can afford it. That's not the case. Doctors aren't going to refuse to treat cancer patients if they can't afford to pay. That would be tantamount to murder. So the current struggle in America right now is not about whether or not one can receive health care but whether or not one can pay the bills after they do receive it.
 
Oct 30, 2014
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Socialised healthcare is legalised theft.


Not everyone wants to be part of a universal healthcare insurance program. Not everyone wants the state to steal from their neighbour either.

Socialised healthcare eventually necessitates "sin taxes" as it relates to diet and fitness in an attempt to rectify the burden that the irresponsible place on the responsible.

The Bible teaches, thou shalt not steal.
By the same logic state education is legalized theft. Building and maintaining roads somewhere you don't live is legalized theft. Maintaining the military with your taxes is legalized theft. Paying government employees with your taxes is legalized theft. I suppose it comes down to what you want your govrnment to spend your money on; killing people or helping people.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#7
Patient A has health insurance. They go to the doctor and get billed $150. Their insurance covers $75, therefore they only have to pay $75. They can afford this, so they pay. Patient B does not have health insurance. They go to the doctor for the same service and get billed $300. They have no insurance to help with any portion of this fee.
You do realize the insurance company is making up the difference in the first two cases, right? roll-eye-smiley.gif

The insurance company doesn't negotiate a more favorable rate for the patient. They negotiate a more favorable rate for the insurance company. The patient has to pay the difference. It's called a "co-pay." facepalm.gif
 
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Valkyrie

Guest
#8
There are a lot of problems with the American health care system, but access to care is not one of them. Let me illustrate with an example:

Patient A has health insurance. They go to the doctor and get billed $150. Their insurance covers $75, therefore they only have to pay $75. They can afford this, so they pay. Patient B does not have health insurance. They go to the doctor for the same service and get billed $300. They have no insurance to help with any portion of this fee. Therefore they cannot afford to pay the full amount. Therefore a payment plan is set up where they pay in increments of $75 until the full fee is paid off without interest accumulating. Both A and B receive the same quality of care, but B is charged more because he's not in the "insurance loop" so-to-speak. And it takes B a longer time to pay off his bills.

Maybe there are some outlandish rumors circulating about socialized health care, but the same is true of America's current system. Unless I'm mistaken (and there's that possibility), socialist advocates of "affordable care" want to portray the current health care system as though one can't receive the health care they need unless they can afford it. That's not the case. Doctors aren't going to refuse to treat cancer patients if they can't afford to pay. That would be tantamount to murder. So the current struggle in America right now is not about whether or not one can receive health care but whether or not one can pay the bills after they do receive it.
The problem is in the US healthcare companies are publicly traded. So people make tons of money off you getting sick or dieing.
Your point is incorrect though. Care is easy to find yes but your A and B situation left a variable out. Person A's insurance may help medical expenses yes, but Person A is also probably paying around the difference if not more in that situation biweekly. Not to mention that doesn't include dental or vision.

Whats the point of healthcare when you cant afford to use it? On a side point its ridiculous to have someone who goes to the doctor once a year to pay crazy high costs to support a drug attics poor decisions in life. I wouldn't have such a terrible issue if there was not a tax penalty for not having healthcare. So essentially forcing you to buy into a system that wait for it...... people makes tons of money off of.
 
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TheAristocat

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2011
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You do realize the insurance company is making up the difference in the first two cases, right? View attachment 97647

The insurance company doesn't negotiate a more favorable rate for the patient. They negotiate a more favorable rate for the insurance company. The patient has to pay the difference. It's called a "co-pay." View attachment 97648
Heh. I'm not talking about co-pays or one's insurance making it more affordable for them than it is for someone else without insurance. I'm talking about the BASE (i.e. before insurance or lack thereof even enters the equation) fee of health care being more for the same service if you don't have insurance. It has nothing to do with insurance covering part of the cost. People without insurance are charged higher BASE fees than are those with insurance. And ON TOP OF THAT you have insurance companies "making up the difference" for the person whose fees are lower to even start with. That's why I said it was backward.
 

TheAristocat

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2011
2,150
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#10
You do realize the insurance company is making up the difference in the first two cases, right? View attachment 97647

The insurance company doesn't negotiate a more favorable rate for the patient. They negotiate a more favorable rate for the insurance company. The patient has to pay the difference. It's called a "co-pay." View attachment 97648
This article explains my point nicely: Why Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured | Alternet It's about insurance companies making deals with hospitals - not about insurance companies paying portions of the patients' bills.

When an insurance carrier foots a hospital bill, the company "negotiates" a price with the hospital that is usually about half the original billing price. Yet when an individual without insurance is forced to pay for healthcare, they don't have this bargaining power. So they end up paying the "full" rates, making up the slack for the deals the insurance companies have gotten (as well as the uninsured individuals who never pay their bills).

"If you look at it from the insurance company's perspective, they are a big group who can make a deal with the hospital," said Marianne McMullen, communications director of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Hospital Accountability Project, a relatively new initiative aimed at linking workers' and patients' rights. "But from the perspective of the uninsured, it's really gross. The hospitals are making their biggest profit off them."

The full rates uninsured people end up paying are usually vastly inflated from the actual cost of providing service.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#11
This article explains my point nicely: Why Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured | Alternet It's about insurance companies making deals with hospitals - not about insurance companies paying portions of the patients' bills.
The article's author doesn't know squat about insurance companies. He/she needs a lesson in the industry. The article says essentially the same thing I said, but doesn't show any understanding of what it means. No offense, but apparently neither do you.
 
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andypro

Guest
#12
A socialist and a libertarian are walking in a hospital. They see a room with a man in it in obvious terrible shape - overweight from eating too much and not excericising, hacking cough from years of smoking, and tubes all over the place.

The socialist says, "That's a shame, I wonder who's gonna pay for his healthcare?"
The libertarian says, "That's a shame, I wonder how he's gonna pay for his healthcare?"
 

Billyd

Senior Member
May 8, 2014
5,034
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#13
The problem is in the US healthcare companies are publicly traded. So people make tons of money off you getting sick or dieing.
Your point is incorrect though. Care is easy to find yes but your A and B situation left a variable out. Person A's insurance may help medical expenses yes, but Person A is also probably paying around the difference if not more in that situation biweekly. Not to mention that doesn't include dental or vision.

Whats the point of healthcare when you cant afford to use it? On a side point its ridiculous to have someone who goes to the doctor once a year to pay crazy high costs to support a drug attics poor decisions in life. I wouldn't have such a terrible issue if there was not a tax penalty for not having healthcare. So essentially forcing you to buy into a system that wait for it...... people makes tons of money off of.
I'm patient A and my brother is patient B. A few years back, we had the same surgery at the same hospital. Our total bill was the same ($150K). My insurance company had a negotiated price (group rate) for the surgery (total cost $75K). I paid a small co-pay, and the insurance company paid the rest. After the surgery was complete, my brother walked into the financial office and asked them if he wrote them a check for $50K would that settle the account. Their answer was yes. He pulled out his checkbook and wrote them a check for $5K, and handed it to them, then said that he would write them a check for $5K every year until he paid the $50K. They took the check, handed him a receipt and a payment agreement. His annual payment was about 2/3 of my annual cost share for my insurance.

Critical care is available to anyone in the US.

The availability of routine quality care is available to those with insurance, and those who can afford it. I can give you numerous examples of this problem. The shortage of physicians, and in particularly those who practice internal and general medicine, exacerbate this problem. The best solution to this problem is opening medical schools to at least 50% more students every year. In addition drug companies must make an effort to provide high cost, effective drugs, to those who need them and can not afford them, at an affordable price (including free).

I know that some of you will disagree with me, but I prefer to make a Medicare like program available to everyone. The only thing that I would change in the current program would be to make the monthly cost share based on the income of the participant. I know that it would require an increase in the Medicare Tax, but we could offset that by doing away with annual tax rebates that exceed total tax owed (EIC).

We are the richest country in the world, and there is no excuse for not providing quality healthcare to every citizen!
 

TheAristocat

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2011
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#14
The article's author doesn't know squat about insurance companies. He/she needs a lesson in the industry. The article says essentially the same thing I said, but doesn't show any understanding of what it means. No offense, but apparently neither do you.
There's always that possibility, but here are some other articles that must miss that mark as well:

Hospitals Charge Uninsured and “Self-Pay” Patients More than Double What Insured Patients Pay - 2007 - News Releases - News - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Uninsured patients pay more for care - Health - Health care | NBC News

Hospitals in the Philadelphia area, for example, charged an average of $30,000 to treat a heart attack in 2002, said Dr. Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins University. He said most insurers ultimately were asked to pay less than $10,000.
Hospitals now charge uninsured patients two to four times as much for treatment as patients with health care coverage, he said.
Basically, let's say I don't have insurance and a relative of mine does. We go to the same hospital for the same service. My relative is charged $150, $75 of which is required of him as a copay. I, however, get charged $300, $300 of which is required of me. I don't know how exactly you view copayments, but I believe I've seen the above scenario play out similarly as illustrated. If you have an explanation for this, then I'm all ears.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#15
Basically, let's say I don't have insurance and a relative of mine does. We go to the same hospital for the same service. My relative is charged $150, $75 of which is required of him as a copay. I, however, get charged $300, $300 of which is required of me. I don't know how exactly you view copayments, but I believe I've seen the above scenario play out similarly as illustrated. If you have an explanation for this, then I'm all ears.
I haven't a clue where you get the idea he was "charged" $150. He/she wasn't. He/she was charged $75, his/her copay. Your relative's insurance company paid the other $75, which was the negotiated price between the insurance company and the doctor. It is based on volume for the doctor, he/she being one of the insurance company's preferred physicians. It's like when a city buys police cars. Ford sells 200 police cars, they have a package deal for police departments that eliminates dealer prep, shipping, and other charges and fees that buyers of a single vehicle don't qualify for.

How hard is that to understand? It's not unfair. It's good business. If people want to get the deal, they have to go through an insurance company. If they can't afford insurance, then we need to provide some kind of coverage for them, but we don't need universal healthcare to do that. We only need to insure 30 million people, not 318 million.
 
Nov 26, 2011
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By the same logic state education is legalized theft. Building and maintaining roads somewhere you don't live is legalized theft. Maintaining the military with your taxes is legalized theft. Paying government employees with your taxes is legalized theft. I suppose it comes down to what you want your govrnment to spend your money on; killing people or helping people.
Local governments are generally meant to fund roads and they are meant to use petrol taxes to do so. At least that is how it is where I live.

As for maintaining the military, there is only a standing army where I live because oligarchs want to push agendas around the world. These agendas lead to discord and an increase in violence and crisis. I live in the U.S. and it is stipulated in founding documents that it the "militia" which is necessary for the security of a free state, the militia being divided into the organised and unorganised, the unorganised being a national guard.

State education ought to be a user pay system. Why should those whom home school their own children be forced to pay for the education of others?

I home schooled my son and we had to wear the cost ourselves for materials, our time etc. We still had to pay through taxation for the education of others. It is just an example of legalised theft where people use the apparatus of the state to steal on their behalf.

Most people generally don't question a whole lot and therefore thinking outside the box can be a difficult thing.
 
Nov 26, 2011
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The agenda to implement a forced universal healthcare program is clearly a business agenda for it forces people to buy a product.

Most modern health care is based on an allopathic model which only really deals with the symptoms of toxicity and starvation. Allopathic medicine is very profitable and is backed by gigantic drug producing business enterprises. These enterprises fund special interest groups which in turn influence the political process and the media. These enterprises pay doctors a commission to push their products.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#18
Most modern health care is based on an allopathic model which only really deals with the symptoms of toxicity and starvation.
One, incorrect. Most modern healthcare -- except for socialized medicine -- is preventative. Two, your use of the term "allopathic" reveals you to be a proponent of alternative medicines. It would be nice if you were honest about what you believe.
 
Nov 26, 2011
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One, incorrect. Most modern healthcare -- except for socialized medicine -- is preventative. Two, your use of the term "allopathic" reveals you to be a proponent of alternative medicines. It would be nice if you were honest about what you believe.
I have not been dishonest in anyway at all.

You have accused me of being a liar, PROVE IT.

There are clearly preventative aspects espoused in modern medicine but the way that disease is viewed is through allopathic thinking. Of course people can deny the use of the word "allopathic" as having a real meaning, but this is only due to underlying philosophical bias.

I can give you a person example. I used to suffer from Ecsema for several years. I was first diagnosed as suffering from scabies. When treatment for that failed I was diagnosed as suffering from a fungus. When treatment for that failed I was sent to a specialist (dermatologist) who diagnosed me with Ecsema and prescribed me a steroid cream to use for flareups. I used this cream for a couple of years until the mother of a friend of mine recommended I look up the side effects of such a cream and I was soon surprised to learn that it can cause sterility. I then did some further research and found an article in an Indian medicine book that the symptoms of Ecsema can be the result of toxin buildup in the body and a lack of hydration to purge them. I changed my diet and drank more water and I have never suffered from an Ecsema flareup since.

That experience opened the door for me to research the alternative health literature and it led me eventually to the School of Natural Healing. Now I disagree with some of that schools fundamentals (ie. the conception of an ether) but I most definitely agree with how they approach disease. I have see with my own eyes the clear success of that approach.

I was discussing my history of Ecsema and cure with a doctor at an event once. I was astounded to discover that the doctor did not believe me. He told me point blank that my adherence to a changed diet and drinking more water was simply the placebo effect. This man was a general practitioner and he is not the only one who thinks in such a way. Of course some doctors are better than others.

If I go to the local doctor with a symptom, they generally treat the symptom and call that symptom a disease. There are others who do not take that approach and look at the symptom as a result of toxicity or starvation. I have seen a lot more success in the second view than the first.

Why should people who adhere to the second view be forced to pay for treatment (that they don't want) undertaken from the perspective of the first view?

Coercive Universal Health Care is legalised theft.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#20
I have not been dishonest in anyway at all.

You have accused me of being a liar, PROVE IT.
Find me anyplace in the thread you have admitted to being an advocate for alternative medicines, and show me how you have explained this viewpoint colors your view of healthcare.

Dishonesty entails omission, as well as commission.