Healthcare question

I'd say Universal would be more feasible in regards to keeping costs down which in turn would curtail people having to file bankruptcy or emptying out their life savings to pay off high medical bills.

How is this even a fucking question? Universal healthcare is superior and it shouldnt even be considered something thats debatable.

Neither. I want pricing reform so we don't have to pay $400 for a Tylenol in a hospital.

The only reason we need insurance is because insurance itself has made insurance necessary. Institutions knowing insurance companies will pay ridiculous bills without question is a large part of why the cost of health care has skyrocketed.

Part of why I was opposed to Obamacare, and opposed to everything similar before and since. It's not the solution - and all it really does it slap a Band-Aid on the problem while allowing the real underlying issue to escape notice (and being addressed) for longer.

Glob posted...

How is this even a fucking question? Universal healthcare is superior and it shouldnt even be considered something thats debatable.

This. The only way in which it's worse is that there are fewer opportunities for particularly wealthy people to jump the queue and get better treatment, but that's not an issue for the vast majority of people (as much as privatized care is sold to the masses by appealing to the fantasy that someday they might be able to attain such a position themselves) and those opportunities would still exist, so there's little reason to care about it. Universal care yields better health outcomes, provides care at a lower overall cost, and results in fewer people trapped in debt.

Glob posted...

How is this even a fucking question? Universal healthcare is superior and it shouldnt even be considered something thats debatable.

Well many people rail against a Universal system so that's why I asked the question because it seems to be if so many people favor a universal system why hasn't America moved to that as opposed to what's in place now which works against citizens.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Neither. I want pricing reform so we don't have to pay $400 for a Tylenol in a hospital.

With a Universal Plan you wouldn't pay $400 for Tylenol.

BUMPED2002 posted...

Well many people rail against a Universal system so that's why I asked the question because it seems to be if so many people favor a universal system why hasn't America moved to that as opposed to what's in place now which works against citizens.

Lobbying from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, a belief that such a plan would result in tax hikes (never mind that *all* Americans currently pay more per capita for health care than any other country, so even if everyone's proportional contribution remained the same a universal or single-payer system could save everyone money by just copying how literally anyone else's health care system is structured), and ideological opposition to "handouts" (usually fanned by lobbyists and others with a vested interest in maximizing the profits of the health insurance industry). A sizable amount of money goes into convincing Americans that universal health care would be bad for them, mostly coming from people who make more money without universal health care.

Insurance is theft, anyone defending a privatized system that puts profits above guaranteed access to health care (a literal human right) is extremely sad and embarrassing.

BUMPED2002 posted...

With a Universal Plan you wouldn't pay $400 for Tylenol.

No, the universal insurance system would pay $400 for Tylenol. But my taxes pay into the insurance system. So I would still be paying $400 for Tylenol.

The solution to the problem isn't to redistribute who has to pay the insane bill. The solution to the problem is making the bill not insane in the first place.

That's incredibly simplifying things, and there's more to it than that (the health care system is incredibly broken, in nearly every possible way something can be broken), but the call for "universal health care" is generally the sop used to distract people from the actual problems. And like most solutions our current government discusses, it won't actually solve anything even if you get it (and will actively prevent actual solutions).

Addressing things like "Big Pharma" would do a hell of a lot more to help people than UHC would. But pushing UHC initiatives allows politicians to claim the problem has been "solved" so they can stop trying to solve it (or stop pretending to try and solve it to get votes).

Price gouging is largely a consequence of insurance companies negotiating prices down when they actually pay, thanks to the buying power they have. Because insurance companies won't be paying the full sticker price, the sticker price has to be jacked up so the hospitals can still make ends meet when the bill is partially paid. That, in turn, makes things less affordable for uninsured people, giving them more motivation to seek out insurance and benefiting insurance companies even more.

Take insurance companies and questions of maintaining a business relationship with them out of the equation, and you've got a recipe for much more reasonable costs. You've also got a recipe for fiscally conservative politicians to push for cost-saving measures within a universal system, rather than pushing against the system altogether (though most of those politicians have enough investments in the health industry that there's no small amount of conflict of interest there).

Glob posted...

How is this even a fucking question? Universal healthcare is superior and it shouldnt even be considered something thats debatable.

BUMPED2002 posted...

Well many people rail against a Universal system

Because many people are fucking imbeciles who get an erection when they hear the words "freedom of choice" and don't spend even one second investigating the implications or consequences. Americans have been intentionally conditioned to immediately respond negatively to anything that could possibly be labeled socialism by their corporate overlords and would rather die from a treatable condition that isn't covered by their overpriced, useless health plan while jerking off about how free they are rather than just have medical coverage by default from the big nasty government.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0d2c74bb.jpg

captpackrat posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0d2c74bb.jpg

Masking the fact that democratic socialism is a thing and equating any mention of socialism or social programs to authoritarian government is exactly the sort of disingenuous garbage argument I was talking about. Thanks for providing an example.