News What are other countries doing that the U.S. should be doing?

[Mech_Engineer]

So, what I'm getting is that no one has any examples of a successful (and/or economically viable) universal healthcare system?

Universal healthcare is like communism- dependent on a utopian dream of human nature, but ultimately collapses from the real thing.

 

[AlephZero]

So, what I'm getting is that no one has any examples of a successful (and/or economically viable) universal healthcare system?

Do France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, (or most other EU countries for that matter) count as examples?

So far as I can tell, one basic problem with the US system is that the only truly "universal care" available is "emergency care", which is a fundamentally inefficient and ineffective way to provide a service. Ignoring arguments about which country's care facilities are "better", I don't think there is much argument that prevention is cheaper than cure.

 

[WhoWee]

Will someone please explain how universal health care would grow the economy of the US?

 

[Alfi]

Got any examples of countries which are successfully implementing it?

Do France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, (or most other EU countries for that matter) count as examples?

add Canada to that list.


People get sick and are helped to heal and get back to work, without the loss of their homes.
It's not free. We all pay into it and hope we never need it.

 

[WhoWee]

Do France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, (or most other EU countries for that matter) count as examples?

add Canada to that list.

People get sick and are helped to heal and get back to work, without the loss of their homes.
It's not free. We all pay into it and hope we never need it.

No - not in the context of universal health care being a solution to economic growth in the US.

 

[Proton Soup]

Will someone please explain how universal health care would grow the economy of the US?

i don't know that it would. but if it could, i think it would require lowering the overall costs of providing healthcare.

 

[Antiphon]

The rest of the world has far far fewer lawyers than the US and far fewer than that who make a living tearing down ongoing business. I'm thinking of all the ambulance-chasing, asbestos hysteria etc. that costs the US untold billions.

 

[WhoWee]

i don't know that it would. but if it could, i think it would require lowering the overall costs of providing healthcare.

I don't believe it would either - since Gza first introduced universal healthcare into the thread, only turbo has made an economics argument - all other comments are (IMO) off topic.

 

[drankin]

Health care and tourism are service industries. They don't create anything. It's where funds go after they are earned in manufacturing.

 

[turbo]

Health care and tourism are service industries. They don't create anything. It's where funds go after they are earned in manufacturing.

Tourism, including restaurants, hotels, retail shops, etc are HUGE in Maine. All that money ends up being spent on goods and services that stimulate farming, fishing, manufacturing, and other industries. Local economies are not zero-sum games with end-points where money goes to die.

Let's try to be rational and fair. People who earn the least in our society have to spend the very highest percentage of their earnings on food, fuel, goods, and services just to keep themselves and their families operating. The people who wait on tables, clean hotel rooms, and clerk in touristy shops or guide rafting trips all spend money, and that money stimulates all the rest of the economy. Service jobs are not unproductive, and it is wrong to characterize them as such, since the people who work in such industries spend money just like the rest of us.

 

[Proton Soup]

Service jobs are not unproductive, and it is wrong to characterize them as such, since the people who work in such industries spend money just like the rest of us.

maybe so, and perhaps some states can generate most of their revenue from gambling. but it still requires that some other economic sector create real assets that enable spending on those services. health care is no different. it is an essential service, but it still requires hard production somewhere. so at some point, the relative cost of healthcare (or even legal services if you like) creates a burden on other sectors, perhaps dragging down healthcare with it.

now, making healthcare more efficient may not really be what most of us want, even if it does speed up the economy. more efficient might mean less bureaucracy, oversight, and litigation. that will no doubt improve quality in some areas, and maybe lower it overall. well, we like quality, and maybe like having a slower economy to get it. tolerating a less clean environment might accelerate manufacturing growth, etc.

 

[CAC1001]

Health care and tourism are service industries. They don't create anything. It's where funds go after they are earned in manufacturing.

Service industries most definitely create wealth. Manufacturing is not some panecea that only creates wealth. Wealth consists of both goods and services.

 

[ParticleGrl]

In the context of this thread - please. How would universal healthcare help grow the US economy?

Right now, its very difficult for people with any pre-existing conditions to start their own companies, because its hard for them to get health insurance. For everyone, the need for health insurance adds another layer of risk over the already risky prospect of starting a new business.

By freeing people to become entrepreneurs, universal healthcare would lead to growth in small businesses.

 

[turbo]

If the US had universal health care coverage, that would free up a lot of small businesses, so they could vary their staffing based on how busy they are. I have a neighbor who is a registered Maine guide. He guides white-water rafting trips all summer and early fall. When winter comes, he can transition to running snow-making equipment, grooming trails, and running lifts at a ski resort. In the off-seasons, he has been known to work as a substitute filling temporary vacancies at businesses as varied as a home/school for children with behavioral problems or at a tannery.

He has this flexibility because his wife works for the regional hospital and has family health-insurance coverage. Many people in seasonal or part-time jobs don't have that kind of safety net, so they are stuck when lay-offs come along.

If I owned a small business, like a commercial fishing enterprise (often only one or two boats and crews), I would be thrilled to have universal health-insurance coverage, because that would allow me access to the best crews, without the employees worrying about that insurance. Commercial fishing is pretty big here, though the businesses are generally very small. There are open and closed seasons, catch limits, etc, that dictate the lives of the fishermen, so they transition to whatever is profitable at the time, be it dragging for scallops, shrimping, groundfishing, lobstering... These activities don't necessarily have equivalent staffing requirements, so crew sizes can vary with the seasons. Small lobster boats can often operate with a captain/pilot and a single stern-man to pull the traps and gauge the lobsters re-bait and re-set. Dragging for scallops, cleaning out dredge after every haul, and sorting out all the rocks and trash from the live scallops, and shucking the scallops, is more labor-intensive and might easily require a 4-man crew at a minimum.

 

[WhoWee]

Right now, its very difficult for people with any pre-existing conditions to start their own companies, because its hard for them to get health insurance. For everyone, the need for health insurance adds another layer of risk over the already risky prospect of starting a new business.

By freeing people to become entrepreneurs, universal healthcare would lead to growth in small businesses.

How are people being restricted from starting their own business because they don't have health insurance?

 

[WhoWee]

If the US had universal health care coverage, that would free up a lot of small businesses, so they could vary their staffing based on how busy they are. I have a neighbor who is a registered Maine guide. He guides white-water rafting trips all summer and early fall. When winter comes, he can transition to running snow-making equipment, grooming trails, and running lifts at a ski resort. In the off-seasons, he has been known to work as a substitute filling temporary vacancies at businesses as varied as a home/school for children with behavioral problems or at a tannery.

He has this flexibility because his wife works for the regional hospital and has family health-insurance coverage. Many people in seasonal or part-time jobs don't have that kind of safety net, so they are stuck when lay-offs come along.

If I owned a small business, like a commercial fishing enterprise (often only one or two boats and crews), I would be thrilled to have universal health-insurance coverage, because that would allow me access to the best crews, without the employees worrying about that insurance. Commercial fishing is pretty big here, though the businesses are generally very small. There are open and closed seasons, catch limits, etc, that dictate the lives of the fishermen, so they transition to whatever is profitable at the time, be it dragging for scallops, shrimping, groundfishing, lobstering... These activities don't necessarily have equivalent staffing requirements, so crew sizes can vary with the seasons. Small lobster boats can often operate with a captain/pilot and a single stern-man to pull the traps and gauge the lobsters re-bait and re-set. Dragging for scallops, cleaning out dredge after every haul, and sorting out all the rocks and trash from the live scallops, and shucking the scallops, is more labor-intensive and might easily require a 4-man crew at a minimum.

Do these employers have workers comp?

 

[turbo]

Do these employers have workers comp?

There is no blanket answer to that. Some businesses treat employees as if they were contractors (no workers comp) and some sneak through the system by paying cash to their workers with no withholding. This results in a loss of tax revenue to the state, and lack of monitoring by the insurance board/labor regulators.

There are other scams, but those are two big ones. I know a guy who cuts woodlots for people, and skids the de-limbed logs to the roadside for sale and who requires cash payments. No checks, and nothing on the books. There are enough private landowners who are willing to play along, so he can keep busy. He has been under the radar for decades.

 

[WhoWee]

There is no blanket answer to that. Some businesses treat employees as if they were contractors (no workers comp) and some sneak through the system by paying cash to their workers with no withholding. This results in a loss of tax revenue to the state, and lack of monitoring by the insurance board/labor regulators.

There are other scams, but those are two big ones. I know a guy who cuts woodlots for people, and skids the de-limbed logs to the roadside for sale and who requires cash payments. No checks, and nothing on the books. There are enough private landowners who are willing to play along, so he can keep busy. He has been under the radar for decades.

I still don't see how enabling these people to get health insurance will boost the economy - won't this escalate to the new IRS agents chasing them to comply? Further, adding them to "the books" might put the employers who pay cash out of business. These people need lower operating costs, access to capital, and greater demand for their products/services - don't they?

 

[turbo]

I still don't see how enabling these people to get health insurance will boost the economy - won't this escalate to the new IRS agents chasing them to comply? Further, adding them to "the books" might put the employers who pay cash out of business. These people need lower operating costs, access to capital, and greater demand for their products/services - don't they?

Small businesses need access to affordable, skilled labor, too - not just capital and markets. That could be made a lot easier if the US had universal health-care coverage, since workers' coverage would be portable and not depend on their jobs.

As I have tried to explain, we have a preponderance of seasonal, part-time, and temporary jobs in forest products, commercial fishing, tourism, and many other fields. Many people work more than two jobs at once and/or hold several seasonal jobs over the course of the year, none of which have health-care coverage. These businesses would benefit from the additional stability of their work-forces. Even low-paying service jobs require some level of training and orientation, and if you lose those workers, you have to pay (in money, time and lost productivity) to train their replacements. Universal health care would be a boon to small businesses, IMO. I have explained why as well as I can.

Small businesses are really important drivers in our economy, and if we can make it easier for them to get and retain good employees, we will all benefit.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

What the US needs for healthcare is access to plans where people pay for the coverage they want, in the amounts they want, and are required to pay the premiums associated with that coverage. Coverage premiums (like any insurance) should be based on the person's odds of requiring expensive medical care.

We don't need the government to force this on us, what we need is the government to get out of the way and allow: 1) multi-state competing health insurance plans and 2) make sure people who receive medical attention are required to pay their bills. Medical bills are expensive because for every card-carrying insured person who pays their bills, there are 10 who don't. What's so complex about that?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

By the way, I do like the idea of helathcare plans being attached to the family, not the employee's employer/job.

 

[turbo]

Coverage premiums (like any insurance) should be based on the person's odds of requiring expensive medical care.

There's the rub, IMO. How do you know that your child is liable to come down with pancreatic cancer? If (s)he does, under current laws, the insurance company can drop your family under arcane rescission rules, and you won't possibly have the money or legal resources to prevail against them.

IMO, we all need to share the costs of health-care, and we all need to share the risks. I never had any children, yet fully 50% of my property taxes every year for the last 35 years have gone to educate other peoples' kids, since Maine uses property taxes to fund our educational system. Is it "fair"? I don't know, but it's workable, and education is just as valuable IMO as infrastructure.

If I only drive a couple of thousand miles a year (yes, this is my situation), should I pay the same road-use taxes that everyone else does, even if they put on 20-30K miles a year? I have a 2010 Honda Ridgeline that will be pristine (and hopefully antique!) when I am long-gone. The cost of monitoring/rationing usage of public resources like this would be too high, so I'm resigned to paying my fair share. I feel the same way about health-care.

 

[WhoWee]

What policies/actions are other countries implementing to grow their economies that the U.S. could learn from and emulate? Emphasis on fast-growing developing countries, such as China, India and Brazil.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43359312/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/"

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2043235,00.html"

I don't see any evidence that universal healthcare is the secret to their success - can we get back on topic please?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

There's the rub, IMO. How do you know that your child is liable to come down with pancreatic cancer?

That's what actuaries are for.

If (s)he does, under current laws, the insurance company can drop your family under arcane rescission rules, and you won't possibly have the money or legal resources to prevail against them.

I don't think someone should be dropped from coverage they have if/when they develop a problem. It's worth looking into fixing this loophole (if it exists). What "arcane recission rules" are you specifically referring to?

IMO, we all need to share the costs of health-care, and we all need to share the risks.

That's the very definition of insurance- everyone pays premiums for coverage against an expensive problem. The point is that everyone needs to pay their required share based on their added risk to the group (take for example car insurance, people with lots of speeding tickets pay more).

I never had any children, yet fully 50% of my property taxes every year for the last 35 years have gone to educate other peoples' kids, since Maine uses property taxes to fund our educational system. Is it "fair"? I don't know, but it's workable, and education is just as valuable IMO as infrastructure.

I'm just going to leave this. As it is, this thread is going to get completely bogged down in healthcare alone.

If I only drive a couple of thousand miles a year (yes, this is my situation), should I pay the same road-use taxes that everyone else does, even if they put on 20-30K miles a year? I have a 2010 Honda Ridgeline that will be pristine (and hopefully antique!) when I am long-gone. The cost of monitoring/rationing usage of public resources like this would be too high, so I'm resigned to paying my fair share. I feel the same way about health-care.

Sounds to me like you're arguring for a Fair Tax. What are your feelings on it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

 

[Al68]

IMO, we all need to share the costs of health-care, and we all need to share the risks.

Nothing Marxist or socialist about that ideology at all, is there?

But you left out the most important word: force. We're talking about using force against people to compel them to "share". Unless you were just advocating asking nicely?

 

[Ryumast3r]

Nothing Marxist or socialist about that ideology at all, is there?

But you left out the most important word: force. We're talking about using force against people to compel them to "share". Unless you were just advocating asking nicely?

I believe the difference here is that if you don't put into the healthcare system, it hurts everyone else. People who don't have health insurance and end up getting an expensive procedure done that can't afford it get off paying relatively little, which in turn raises the prices for everyone else. If everyone pays into the insurance pool, the amount of money that doesn't get paid becomes very little, and the price of everything drops as a result since now hospitals/doctors/the businesses aren't having to fork out the money that wasn't paid for through insurance/cash.

I advocate free market (with regulations) in a lot of things, but there's a few things I prefer the socialist way, those things include military, healthcare, and public safety.

And yes, it IS Socialist. LE GASP, I SAID IT. Get over it. It's just another ideology that has extremes, and good ideas, just like every other ideology.

 

[WhoWee]

I believe the difference here is that if you don't put into the healthcare system, it hurts everyone else. People who don't have health insurance and end up getting an expensive procedure done that can't afford it get off paying relatively little, which in turn raises the prices for everyone else. If everyone pays into the insurance pool, the amount of money that doesn't get paid becomes very little, and the price of everything drops as a result since now hospitals/doctors/the businesses aren't having to fork out the money that wasn't paid for through insurance/cash.

I advocate free market (with regulations) in a lot of things, but there's a few things I prefer the socialist way, those things include military, healthcare, and public safety.

And yes, it IS Socialist. LE GASP, I SAID IT. Get over it. It's just another ideology that has extremes, and good ideas, just like every other ideology.

We already have "Obamacare" - it hasn't fixed the economy - nor will it - again IMO. Can we please return to the OP?

 

[Al68]

I believe the difference here is that if you don't put into the healthcare system, it hurts everyone else. People who don't have health insurance and end up getting an expensive procedure done that can't afford it get off paying relatively little, which in turn raises the prices for everyone else. If everyone pays into the insurance pool, the amount of money that doesn't get paid becomes very little, and the price of everything drops as a result since now hospitals/doctors/the businesses aren't having to fork out the money that wasn't paid for through insurance/cash.

I advocate free market (with regulations) in a lot of things, but there's a few things I prefer the socialist way, those things include military, healthcare, and public safety.

And yes, it IS Socialist. LE GASP, I SAID IT. Get over it. It's just another ideology that has extremes, and good ideas, just like every other ideology.

Well, you get points for honesty. I have never understood the need to espouse socialist policy then object to the word socialist. My response was specific to turbo-1 who routinely objects to the words "socialist" and "Marxist" to refer to such beliefs. And it's irrelevant and silly, anyway. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

As to your point, the cure doesn't solve the problem, it makes it worse. The people who aren't paying their medical bills are the same people to be subsidized by the cure, not the people being forced to buy something they don't want or need, who currently have medical insurance. And I'm referring to the requirement to buy a comprehensive Cadillac health plan, not just basic medical insurance, which is outlawed by Obamacare.

But all that has been discussed extensively in other threads, the bottom line is that no matter what advocates say, I, and many others, never joined the "healthcare system" you speak of. Never have, never will (which in no way means uninsured, it means not part of a government system). It only means uninsured in the future because "non-system" medical insurance will be outlawed.

It's interesting that so many people have so little value for individual liberty. So little value that they dismiss it out of hand instead of addressing it. So little that they justify the use of force to control people, instead of voluntary peaceful transactions, simply because they think what is being forced on people is "better", as if that made liberty an irrelevant concept.

To many of us, liberty and peaceful co-existence is better than any "healthcare system' socialists can think up to impose on people by force.

 

[AlephZero]

But you left out the most important word: force. We're talking about using force against people to compel them to "share". Unless you were just advocating asking nicely?

It doesn't need any force, only leadership.

Here's a deal: you have 3 choices.

1. You can pay a fixed rate of $100 a year to "share", and what you get back is determined by what you need, not what you pay in.
2. You can pay protection money. This starts at $200 a year. Half of that goes straight into the pockets of the racketeers (sorry, the health insurance administrators etc) and you will only get anything back if the racketeers can't find a reason to stop the payments. Note, if you DO get some money back, your protection payments will be increased to make sure the nice racketeers don't lose any more money in the long term.
3. You can pay nothing, and take your chance on being able to afford any bills as they arise.

Oh, and once option 1 is actually up and running, anybody bone headed enough to choose options 2 and 3 gets no bail out from option 1. Let them die in the streets and bury them in a mass grave, if they can't afford anything better.

Of course the problem in getting from here to there is obvious: the racketeers don't like the idea of being put out of business by option 1. Oh dear, what a pity, never mind, stay as you are then. The rest of the world doesn't care that your life expectancy is going down while theirs is going up.

 

[Ryumast3r]

Well, you get points for honesty. I have never understood the need to espouse socialist policy then object to the word socialist. My response was specific to turbo-1 who routinely objects to the words "socialist" and "Marxist" to refer to such beliefs. And it's irrelevant and silly, anyway. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Apologize for the rough way it came out, had an argument right before I posted that so I was a little on edge, haha.

Anyway: I disagree with using Marxist, simply because most people see that in the context of communism, as opposed to general socialism, but that's neither here nor there really.

As to your point, the cure doesn't solve the problem, it makes it worse. The people who aren't paying their medical bills are the same people to be subsidized by the cure, not the people being forced to buy something they don't want or need, who currently have medical insurance. And I'm referring to the requirement to buy a comprehensive Cadillac health plan, not just basic medical insurance, which is outlawed by Obamacare.

(cutting out the rest since it goes along with this)

I don't really agree with the ins and outs of the Obamacare health insurance mandate, mostly that it has to be a comprehensive plan. I do like though that it requires people to buy insurance, because a lot of people who don't have insurance aren't those who can afford it and just don't, they're people that want it, but can't get it either because market forces said "no" or because they simply couldn't afford it. Putting these people in the pool (and paying some money monthly, as opposed to basically nothing - ever) would be an improvement.

I do advocate multiple plans, one reason why I like the french system as opposed to the British or Canadian is that it offers insurance options as opposed to healthcare. I also think that there is something to be gained by having companies do insurance as opposed to the government, but I also see value in having the government provide an option or two as well, as long as it "competes" fairly with the market forces (so it can't borrow from the general treasury funds and has to do things like a company - on its own). If the government does it, corporations would have to be careful to not "get in bed together" so to speak to drive people out of the market (pre-existing conditions/etc) like they have in the past, since everyone would be able to just go with the government plan - therefore making the company lose business, things like that.

Liberty and peaceful co-existance are great ideas, and great ideals for a society, but there's a reason Anarchy hasn't become a wide-spread thing in society, and it's the same reason why I advocate government getting its grubby hands in companies/economics - people get greedy and, face it, **** happens.

The previous system with the insurance companies and healthcare industry running things hasn't seemed to keep the cost down at all, and kept people with "Pre-existing conditions" with their feet to the fire so to speak, so maybe it's time for a new idea.