Universal Healthcare is Wonderful and Will Ensure Better Health care for everyone

[severin]

Originally Posted by Ever

Well think about it this way if you were to follow the production of one hamburger from scratch what would you see?

Well first you'd see wheat being farmed, you'd see large tractors farm workers etc. then you'd see a mill and you'd see the wheat all being milled up by a bunch of people and machines and tools then you'd see the flour being moved by trucks or trains or planes or some such to some place then it'd be baked and made into buns in a bakery where more people work, then you get a bun which is then transported to your McDonald's. That's the bread part done there, now you need some tomatoes which follow a similar process but without the milling and possibly from a different place and then you need lettuce. The patty, the patty has a whole other story going with it with an abattoir and a cow and a butchery and the hundreds of people employed there. Then you got to think about the service at the restaurant itself where someone puts it all together for you and you pay what like $3.50 for it?

Now think about getting heart surgery performed. You have a surgeon that's one guy and then you have his nurses and an anesthetist and some other doctors there. You have a few machines but a lot less then you'd find in a factory and you have some very very very very simple implements but of course they're all funny shapes.

When you think about the burger and the heart surgery, heart surgery is a lot easier to do from scratch.

They're both goods they're both scarce so comparison is very much so appropriate oh and it very much so gets us places

So why do you have to pay like $40,000 for the latter?

Economics is a wondrous subject I'll tell you that.

Also Debaser, I see you made a reply in video form. May I have it in written please?

sounds nice. apart from the fact that it totally disregards the investment of several hundred thousand dollars into the education of the surgeon, which has to be repaid, the cost of therapy AFTER the operation, the cost of preparing the "funny shaped instruments" in a way so that you don't actually die of blood poisoning after the operation (oh, and the development of said instrument where innovation is kinda expensive and the market is kinda small, in comparison to say, ground beef) and the total dumbness inherent in the statement that the scarseness of burger, which is sold probably a billion times worldwide each day and the scarseness of people able to perform cardiac surgery, where there have to be approx a million worldwide...

[severin]

Originally Posted by Starla

I don't understand where some people think health insurance is awesome. I was forced to take out a loan against my house so I can afford to keep paying for my treatments out of pocket because my insurance company is refusing to cover it after telling me that they would. This is frustrating after paying high premiums for years on end, but that's how it goes. Then I have to read some piddly assed pharmacy tech bitch about all this?

I don't know what state you work in, but medicaid has been more stable and reliable than my insurance company. My daughter came down sick once and they covered every fucking thing. I'm still paying off medical bills from 2 years ago for myself.

so you bought the wrong insurance or have a poor lawyer?

and don't get me wrong, i live in a country, where universal healthcare is available. it doesn't work perfectly, it's not overwhelmingly efficient, but it works. so i think it is a very good idea that the us should get it. BUT, if there is the situation, where i already pay lot's of money for insurance, i would really, really make sure, that everything that could happen is covered, and if i have to pay 5 usd more / month that's worth it....

[Ever]

Originally Posted by severin

sounds nice. apart from the fact that it totally disregards the investment of several hundred thousand dollars into the education of the surgeon, which has to be repaid, the cost of therapy AFTER the operation, the cost of preparing the "funny shaped instruments" in a way so that you don't actually die of blood poisoning after the operation (oh, and the development of said instrument where innovation is kinda expensive and the market is kinda small, in comparison to say, ground beef) and the total dumbness inherent in the statement that the scarseness of burger, which is sold probably a billion times worldwide each day and the scarseness of people able to perform cardiac surgery, where there have to be approx a million worldwide...

You mistook what I was getting at.

I wasn't saying that the creation of one burger was more costly than the creation of one open heart surgery, although I wouldn't be surprised that if you looked at gross investment expenditure down the chain in both cases I turned out to be correct.

I was saying that prices aren't uni-vocally determined by how much expenditure on capital input occurs during production.

Which leads me to:

If surgery has such high revenues then why haven't more entrepreneur's moved into the industry?

Usually when something has a big cash flow its a signal to move in there and do it cheaper, faster or better. Get a piece of the pie

Why has their been such a stagnation and lack of innovation in this field which seems so ripe for it?

Why aren't there many trained professionals ?

I know that the answer in this country (Australia) is because universities, unable to cope with the costs of educating doctors under the standards set by the board of education, place quotas restricting medical school attendance to only the elite of the elite (and usually elite in skills that have nothing to do with being a surgeon or whatever), thus stifling the availability of people with this crucial skill.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were legal mandates or licenses or some such in the U.S that also serves to heavily restrict the supply of doctors and medical professionals

[Trotskilicious]

look out ever took economics 101

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

....because we're talking about the cost of hamburgers and t-shirts as opposed to the cost of....open heart surgery and chemotherapy?

comparing health care to food and clothing won't get anyone anywhere.

In the video, healthcare is called an essential good, and this is what makes it so necessary for government to "control or socialise" it. Food, shelter and clothing are also essential goods - in fact, they are even more so.

There are all kinds of ranges of food, shelter and clothing from hamburgers, crappy studios and burlap sacks all the way through to truffles, multi-million dollar mansions and and Armani suits.

Moreover, there aren't different economic laws for healthcare and then suddenly a whole new set for food. The same fundamental problems that the video ascribes to healthcare exist even moreso in these other "essential" industries.

Yet in America, it would be very, very difficult (of course not impossible) to starve to death, for example.

The major difference between these "essential" industries and healthcare comes right down to government involvement. There is quantifiably much more in the way of healthcare mandates, subsidies, special treats, corporate protections and other legislation seeking to make healthcare a lot more egalitarian. Of course there is involvement in food, shelter and (a little) in clothing - but the scope and effect of this intervention is, relative to the industry, far less - and no one (yet) is trying to make laws promoting equal access to a $30 steak dinner every night. Whereas there have been laws on the book trying to force provision of $400-$1,000 healthplans on people for some time. (note: you also need to read that not as "providing people with $400-$1,000 healthplans" but rather "forcing them to give $400-$1,000 to established and politically connected healthcare corporations.)

[Ever]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

look out ever took economics 101

I did but this is not coming from what I learned in that course.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Ever

I wouldn't be surprised if there were legal mandates or licenses or some such in the U.S that also serves to heavily restrict the supply of doctors and medical professionals

This is basically the main purpose of the AMA.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Yet in America, it would be very, very difficult (of course not impossible) to starve to death, for example.

I thought that was my point.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by severin

so you bought the wrong insurance or have a poor lawyer?

and don't get me wrong, i live in a country, where universal healthcare is available. it doesn't work perfectly, it's not overwhelmingly efficient, but it works. so i think it is a very good idea that the us should get it. BUT, if there is the situation, where i already pay lot's of money for insurance, i would really, really make sure, that everything that could happen is covered, and if i have to pay 5 usd more / month that's worth it....

It's not a matter of buying the wrong insurance. I don't care how much money you pay into a good policy, there's no guarantee that it is going to cover you. If it were possible for me to have such a policy I wouldn't be in this situation. If I had universal health care, I'd still be in this situation.

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Ever

You mistook what I was getting at.

I wasn't saying that the creation of one burger was more costly than the creation of one open heart surgery, although I wouldn't be surprised that if you looked at gross investment expenditure down the chain in both cases I turned out to be correct.

I was saying that prices aren't uni-vocally determined by how much expenditure on capital input occurs during production.

Which leads me to:

If surgery has such high revenues then why haven't more entrepreneur's moved into the industry?

Usually when something has a big cash flow its a signal to move in there and do it cheaper, faster or better. Get a piece of the pie

Why has their been such a stagnation and lack of innovation in this field which seems so ripe for it?

Why aren't there many trained professionals ?

I know that the answer in this country (Australia) is because universities, unable to cope with the costs of educating doctors under the standards set by the board of education, place quotas restricting medical school attendance to only the elite of the elite (and usually elite in skills that have nothing to do with being a surgeon or whatever), thus stifling the availability of people with this crucial skill.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were legal mandates or licenses or some such in the U.S that also serves to heavily restrict the supply of doctors and medical professionals

I don't know why I'm wasting the time to reply to this because of your previous paragraph about burgers vs heart surgery. HOWEVER...

Surgery is incredibly expensive for the reasons listed above. Additionally, if you are having a valve replacement the cost of the valve is around $10k. You will typically be in the hospital for 5 days at least, 3 of those being in the ICU which is fuckload expensive.

People complain about the cost of everything in healthcare like its so bloated and awful without thinking about the people who are running it. Doctors and nurses have to make a living, biomedical manufacturers have to make a living. Most of these people have advanced degrees, and their salaries reflect that.


As for your "thoughts" on surgeons, they aren't simply tailors. Aside from sewing they have to have the same medical knowledge as any other physician. They see non surgical patients in the hospital, they see patients in their office. They have to know about conditions unrelated to their field, about medications etc. To say a regular old entrepreneur should get into the field just b/c they make money is ridiculous. Medical schools are tough for a reason, only the smartest people will A) be able to pass and B) be a good physician. Many people who enter med school fail out. Many graduating Drs are hacks. So why should universities lower their standards?

You know nothing of the field and the innovation that goes on. New advanced technology therapies, research and robotic surgery are all recent developments. You sound like a bumbling fool.

[Ever]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

Surgery is incredibly expensive for the reasons listed above. Additionally, if you are having a valve replacement the cost of the valve is around $10k. You will typically be in the hospital for 5 days at least, 3 of those being in the ICU which is fuckload expensive.

People complain about the cost of everything in healthcare like its so bloated and awful without thinking about the people who are running it. Doctors and nurses have to make a living, biomedical manufacturers have to make a living. Most of these people have advanced degrees, and their salaries reflect that.


As for your "thoughts" on surgeons, they aren't simply tailors. Aside from sewing they have to have the same medical knowledge as any other physician. They see non surgical patients in the hospital, they see patients in their office. They have to know about conditions unrelated to their field, about medications etc. To say a regular old entrepreneur should get into the field just b/c they make money is ridiculous. Medical schools are tough for a reason, only the smartest people will A) be able to pass and B) be a good physician. Many people who enter med school fail out. Many graduating Drs are hacks. So why should universities lower their standards?

You know nothing of the field and the innovation that goes on. New advanced technology therapies, research and robotic surgery are all recent developments. You sound like a bumbling fool.

Mechatronic engineers in charge of manufacturing processes in factories that cut bread into buns need to make a living, agronomists that find out the conditions required for a good harvest need to make a living, mechanical, electric, mechatronic engineers not to mention an army of other staff are required to create tractors and tractor engines and the parts for tractor engines. Civil engineers are required to make the mills and all these people too need to earn a living and some are highly highly educated people.

Making money is tough for a reason. Only those who can get customers make money, in fact I'd argue getting customers and performing a genuinely good service to them as judged by them and not some shcolars in some ivory tower is much harder than passing a few comparatively arbitrarily determined exams and tests

If you want less quack doctors then you want to make the customer the final umpire not some planning board or college committee.

You have no idea what kind of innovations in robotics, advanced production techniques and systems goes on in the production of burgers. You sound like a blumbering fool

Beef Curtains, in every other field as newer technology develops the price of the consumer good becomes cheaper why should medicine be different?

What exactly, in your view, forms prices? Not just medical prices but prices in general? Where do prices come from?

I'll give you a hint prices aren't determined by salaries.

And why, in your view, are the prices of medical goods so much higher than the prices of all other goods? namely why have technological advances in medicine only lead to higher prices not lower?

[Mayfuck]

I remember back when I wanted to get into MIT's engineering program so bad so I could develop the ultimate bread cutting machine and become a millionaire.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Ever

If you want less quack doctors then you want to make the customer the final umpire not some planning board or college committee.

One of the dumbest things I've read on here in a long time.

[Starla]

I found this to be interesting. I can see why they took it down about as fast as it went up though. Organizing for America | Event | 2 PHONE CALLS ON 9/11 - Illinois!

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process

The WH has some of the most shady things going on w/ their web pages.

[Mayfuck]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

One of the dumbest things I've read on here in a long time.

Yeah it really is. Ever and other entry level libertarians are under this delusion that all customers make educated decisions and know what is best for society. see, ever, in too many cases the customer is too stupid to make a decision like those. quack doctors continue to have careers because of idiots like Starla who refuse to get immunizations for their children and instead consult the sun god Marduk

[jczeroman]

Some of this is explained poorly, but the sections about profit, pre-existing conditions and correlation/causation are worth it.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

quack doctors continue to have careers because of idiots like Starla who refuse to get immunizations for their children and instead consult the sun god Marduk

If you only knew the resistance I face up here over vaccines. It's nothing like the easy going quack doctors in California.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

Yeah it really is. Ever and other entry level libertarians are under this delusion that all customers make educated decisions and know what is best for society. see, ever, in too many cases the customer is too stupid to make a decision like those. quack doctors continue to have careers because of idiots like Starla who refuse to get immunizations for their children and instead consult the sun god Marduk

Shows you're lacking in Babylonian history. Marduk was not the "sun god."

[Mayfuck]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Some of this is explained poorly, but the sections about profit, pre-existing conditions and correlation/causation are worth it.

Profit is absolutely taken off the top. Revenue minus expense is profit yes, but you can increase profit by decreasing expenses ie cutting costs ie denying coverage. And I'm not sure where this equaiting health insurance with car insurance plays in when it comes to pre-existing conditions. Your body isn't a car, you dont have to own a car, you can replace your car. You cant do that with your body. Why do you continue to think shopping for healthcare is the same as shopping for a TV or an automobile or a meal when these have varying intrinsic values and operate in different moral prisms. What is your moral imperative here, to see everyone have health care or to see only those who earn it to have health care all in an attempt to enforce choice and consequence, idealism over pragmatism? You want to see governemnt completely out of health care, for medical licensing requirements to be eliminated, for insurers to be allowed to discriminate, for regulations on pharmaceutical products to be dropped so that insurers can operate in this fantasy land where all consumers are rational and educated enough to force the market to make he right decisions, and where all consumers are on equal standing and socioeconimc factors have no effect on whether someone is more likely to be sick and unhealthy, that we're all just born in equally healthy situations

[Red Scarlet]

the point is, if you want healthcare then get a fucking job. it's called being an adult.

[Nimrod's Son]

Notice Mayfuck had no problem with the "fireman" analogy.

[starlightvideoproductions]

I think we can all agree that private insurance companies have their downfalls, but why not just regulate private insurance companies then instead of having a government "option?" I put quotes around option because if this does pass, eventually everyone will be on the "option" unless we have a boat load of cash. Employers won't pay for a private insurance plan when they can stick you on the governments plan for next to nothing. So, when the majority of people are satisfied with their insurance (which has been the results of numerous polls), why should the minority get their way with cheap health care?

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

Profit is absolutely taken off the top. Revenue minus expense is profit yes, but you can increase profit by decreasing expenses ie cutting costs ie denying coverage.

It is true that one can increase profit by decreasing expenses. What you will find is, however, that the worst way possible to decrease expenses is to take it out of your capital (health care providing resources - a.k.a - denials). The best and most sustainable way to decrease costs (and make more profit) is to make wise long-term investments in technology and capital (a.k.a. - find ways to provide even more care). Not everyone behaves like this, of course. But if the moral hazard of the current system were gone, companies and providers that worked on a "denial-for-profits" model would see negative consequences and be out-competed much more quickly. The current set of incentives often rewards denial of care.

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

And I'm not sure where this equaiting health insurance with car insurance plays in when it comes to pre-existing conditions. Your body isn't a car, you dont have to own a car, you can replace your car. You cant do that with your body. Why do you continue to think shopping for healthcare is the same as shopping for a TV or an automobile or a meal when these have varying intrinsic values and operate in different moral prisms.

It comes down to the nature of insurance. It would be stupid to provide insurance for predictable, non-catastrophic or pre-existing conditions because they are "losers" in terms of risk ratios. The only way insurance is sustainable (and these rules don't change if the government is running things) is if there are more winners than losers in a risk-pool. No amount of ideology and good motives can change that.

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

What is your moral imperative here, to see everyone have health care or to see only those who earn it to have health care all in an attempt to enforce choice and consequence, idealism over pragmatism?

My moral imperative is for as many people as possible to have the greatest possible access to the highest quality of healthcare possible, period. If that is my motive, and I am a remotely critical person, I have to ask serious questions about the underlying principles and incentives in "socialised" (whatever that means) medicine.

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

You want to see governemnt completely out of health care, for medical licensing requirements to be eliminated, for insurers to be allowed to discriminate, for regulations on pharmaceutical products to be dropped so that insurers can operate in this fantasy land where all consumers are rational and educated enough to force the market to make he right decisions, and where all consumers are on equal standing and socioeconimc factors have no effect on whether someone is more likely to be sick and unhealthy, that we're all just born in equally healthy situations

I want to see high access to healthcare (preferably universal), high quality care, licensing and standards, arbitrary discrimination discouraged or outright eliminated, high standards of safety for drugs and ethical testing practices and other signs of a good product. I do not think that the government can do this based on primarily the axiomatic problems of government qua government, but to a lesser degree based on the empirical results of government intervention (but this is really not very important to me - nor is it really provable because it is inherently counter factual, e.g. "without the government it would have been better than it otherwise would have been" [which is based on what did not happen]). All of these things can and have arisen in other industries either without or in spite of government intervention.

I do not believe in the "rational market" nor do I believe that a capitalist health system is perfect. But I think the fundamentals and incentives in a free-market: a price system, profits, personal responsibility, decentralisation, community institutions, self-determination, self-interest - are much better than those of government central planning (ala economic fascism) or control (ala socialism): moral hazard, regulatory takeover, patronage, nepotism, tragedy of the commons, tyranny of the majority. Those are always going to be problems with government planning or control of any industry because they are inherent in the very fabric of what makes government "government." It is predicated on giving power to experts to force others to do something against their will. I find this both unworkable and immoral.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Mayfuck

Yeah it really is. Ever and other entry level libertarians are under this delusion that all customers make educated decisions and know what is best for society. see, ever, in too many cases the customer is too stupid to make a decision like those. quack doctors continue to have careers because of idiots like Starla who refuse to get immunizations for their children and instead consult the sun god Marduk

Hey, Marduk can kiss my black ass, 'cause I need more Stimutacs. Quit being a bitch and pill me up!

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

Shows you're lacking in Babylonian history. Marduk was not the "sun god."

hahaha what

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

tyranny of the majority

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Are you objecting to this particular use of the term or the concept?

[RealAudio 3.0]

I spent nearly my whole life in a country with public healthcare. It did have good strong points, but there is a downside I think a lot of people don't think about...

Everything that is remotely dangerous gets either banned or highly regulated under the guise of "public safety". But it's really the government trying to avoid having to pay for procedures. And when a critic says "you're taking my freedoms" --the public answers; "your freedom costs taxpayers' dollars".

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by RealAudio 3.0

I spent nearly my whole life in a country with public healthcare. It did have good strong points, but there is a downside I think a lot of people don't think about...

Everything that is remotely dangerous gets either banned or highly regulated under the guise of "public safety". But it's really the government trying to avoid having to pay for procedures. And when a critic says "you're taking my freedoms" --the public answers; "your freedom costs taxpayers' dollars".

what is banned in developed nations with socialized medicine that isn't banned or highly regulated in the states?

[dudehitscar]

Originally Posted by Red Scarlet

the point is, if you want healthcare then get a fucking job. it's called being an adult.

wow. I think I just decided you aren't worth debating at all. You haven't even thought about this much have you?