The United States can not afford universal Healthcare

Kinda what I thought since so many of your expressed beliefs are based on fallacies. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/pov-blaming-victims-of-poverty/

 

I read somewhere that US Pharma companies spend billions marketing prescription drugs, both by advertising and by direct selling to doctors. Surely a waste of money? Doesn't the FDA dictate what drugs to use?

 

I know. Tokyo, Japan didn't see COVID until years after New York City, it's incredibly spread out, and they implemented spartan restrictions on the public.

You can see in this link that business closures were mandated, and large gathering were prohibited under the penalty of death. The public didn't question the restrictions at all either.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10200000/000603611.pdf

In all seriousness, what you're saying has some truth. But it begs the question, why were Democrats seeking the same sort of restrictions throughout the country? Different states necessitate different responses, no?

 

Greed is the heart of capitalism.
The race to unlimited profits is the goal.

 

How is it possible for posts that aren't based in reality?
Tx and Fl were 2 states that shut things down. Do you know what a Dem is and a Repub is?

The fed gov't never shut down anything.

 

It doesn't appear to matter if there were lock downs or not
Here's the rate of death you speak about.



https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

I believe New York and Florida are the topic of the discussion. Where's Florida on your table? I can't see it. Is it below New York?

 

Nope, wrong answer.

Your healthcare system is based on the Soviet-style Command Market Economic system instead of the Free Market Economic System, which is why healthcare costs more than it should.

To reduce the cost of healthcare, you need only reverse the actions of your State and federal governments, and the American Hospital Association which created the nightmare system you hate to return healthcare to the Free Market where it will be affordable to everyone.

Health insurance was first available through individual hospitals in the US and not through insurance companies.

The first entity to offer health insurance was Baylor Hospital (now Baylor University Medical Center) in 1926. It offered $22,000 of coverage for $6.50/month to all public and private school teachers in Dallas County, Texas.

Do note that meets the US Supreme Court's definition of insurance.

Soon, hospitals around the US began offering health insurance.

By 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, States began demanding that these hospitals comply with State insurance regulations, because States were desperate for cash revenues.

The American Hospital Association (AHA) began lobbying (pronounced "bribing") State legislatures to enact "enabling laws" to enable hospitals to sell insurance without having to comply with insurance regulations.

Because the AHA wrote those bills, the bills also allowed hospitals to legally operate as monopolies to avoid anti-trust law suits.

The AHA sweet-talked legislatures into believing that the free healthcare they would provide to low-income patients would offset the harmful economic consequences of monopoly power.

Seen any of that free healthcare lately? Um, no, and you never will because the AHA wrote the legislation in such a way as they would never have to report to anyone ever at any time ever how much free healthcare they actually provide.

The long-standing feud between the AHA and the American Medical Association (AMA) was this:

1) The AMA believed doctors should be free to charge sliding-scale-fees based on a patient's ability to pay, and doctors did exactly that up through the early 1960s, when doctors were still making house calls.

The AHA believed everyone should be charge the same fees; and

2) The AMA insisted that doctors remain free and independent, while the AHA insisted all doctors be employed by a hospital.

The AHA's policy is harmful, even deadly to you. Being free and independent, your doctor can recommend you have your treatment or surgical procedure at only the best hospitals, but if your doctor is employed by a hospital, your doctor cannot recommend you go elsewhere to avoid serious medical complications or even death.

Many hospitals closed their doors because their reputation in the community as being "hospitals of death" doomed them.

Yeah, that's right...people talk. Listen to women: Don't go there to have your baby, go to one of these hospitals etc etc etc. Old skins do the same: Don't go to that hospital to have your heart surgery, go to one of these hospitals...they're better.

Around 1934, the AHA started grouping AHA member-hospitals in the same city so that they offered the same insurance plans. The AMA followed suit with AMA member-hospitals.

In 1936, the AHA -- and 80% of hospitals were AHA members -- created the "Out-of-Network" policy in an attempt to drive AMA member hospitals out-of-business or force them to quit the AMA and join the AHA.

By 1938, thanks to the Wage & Price Freeze, employers started offering to pay for health insurance since they weren't allowed to give pay raises without prior written consent from the National Labor Board. You chose the insurance, not your employer. Your employer only agree to pay all or a percentage of the cost in lieu of a pay raise.

In 1942, the National War Labor Board declared health insurance plans to be fringe benefits.

In 1946, the AHA created the first health insurance company: the Blue Cross. The AMA created the Blue Shield a few months later.

The AHA's Blue Cross continued its "Out-of-Network" policy in an attempt to drive the Blue Shield out of business.

The 1949 In re: Inland Steel Supreme Court decision made insurance companies realize health insurance was not a fad. It was here to stay.

Insurance companies jumped head-first into the health insurance business and with a couple of years had cut the AHA's Blue Cross market share from 80% down to 40% and falling fast.

Why? It's 1950. The BLS inflation calculator says $100,000 then is equal to $1 Million now so I'll use that to drive the point home.

Your health insurance choices are these:

Option #1
1) Purchase a health insurance plan from anyone other than Blue Cross or Blue Shield
2) Pay monthly premiums for 10 years and then never pay another dime for the rest of your life
3) You and your spouse (and minor children) are covered until the day you die
4) When you die, whatever you didn't spend on health coverage goes to your named beneficiaries.

Example: You spend $250,000 in healthcare on you, your spouse and minor children, then you die and $750,000 goes to your named beneficiaries, mostly likely your children and grand-children who now have money to pay for vocational training, technical school, college, seed money to start a business, a down-payment on a home, or buy a home out-right.

Is that not beautiful or what? What a great way for low-income families to create generational wealth.

Option #2
1) Pay monthly premiums to the Blue Cross/Shield until the day you die
2) Get nothing when you die. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, gar nichts, nimic

How stupid do you think Americans are?

Americans wanted Option #1 hands down.

Because the Blue Cross was not really an insurance company it could not legally offer life insurance, and so it could not sell combined life/catastrophic health insurance policies.

The AHA ran to Congress and lobbied (pronounced "bribed") congress-critters to change the tax laws so prevent Americans from creating generational wealth and passing it on. That change was incorporated into the 1954 IRS Tax Code and retained in the 1986 IRS Tax Code (which is still operative.)

The AHA and your Congress screwed you.

States then started dictating in a manner most-Soviet what you must buy for health plan coverage -- note that no one in the US has had bona fide health insurance since 1954.

The price of medical care dictates the price of health plan coverage.

Step #1: Congress attaches strings to Medicaid:
a) Any State that does not repeal the "enabling laws" loses Medicaid funding
b) Any State that does not pursue anti-trust law suits against hospital monopolies and monopolistic cartels loses Medicaid funding
c) Any State that does not create a hospital licensing statute that requires hospitals offering more than 3 different types of medical services to pay a licensing fee of 50% of their gross revenues loses Medicaid funding.

What did you just do?

You just eliminated all monopolies plus transformed your healthcare delivery system into the same style that Euro-States use.

Yeah, that's right....one reason they can have universal healthcare is because there are no monopolies and they abandoned the Hospital Model of healthcare delivery in favor of the Clinic and Polyclinic Models.

Unless and until you do that, you can never afford universal healthcare.

Healthcare costs less, because they use the Clinic and Polyclinic Models.

I'll let the former German Minister of Health explain it to you in the hope that you might actually get it:

Polyclinics—clusters of general practitioners who work together to form more specialized primary care centers—were used extensively and quite successfully in the former German Democratic Republic.

However, many politicians in West Germany initially disliked the idea of polyclinics because they associated them with communist ideology. It took a while for many people to understand that polyclinics offer significant advantages with regard to communication, coordination, and cooperation.

See: How Germany is reining in health care costs: An interview with Franz Knieps pp 30-31.

Let me know which part of that totally freaking confounds you.

When your system is set up like Germany, and Austria and Belgium and Romania and Denmark and Norway and the others, then you will be able to consider the possibility of universal healthcare.

Step #2: Congress attaches more strings to Medicaid: Any State that does not allow Free Market health plan coverage loses Medicaid funding.

Can you buy $50,000 worth of ER coverage?

Nope, because you don't have Free Market healthcare. You can't buy $100,000 or $250,000 or $500,000 for the same reason: You have Soviet-style Command Market healthcare.

Because you have Soviet-style Command Market healthcare, you cannot buy $250,000 worth of catastrophic coverage or anything else.

Step #1 will decrease the cost of medical care 40%-60% over-night, which in turn will decrease the cost of health plan coverage 40%-60% over-night.

It is claimed that health plan coverage costs $20,000/year but in reality, most employers pay at least half of that.

Instead of you paying $10,000/year, a 40%-60% reduction means you're only paying $4,000 to $6,000/year.

Buying only the health plan coverage you want can reduce that up to 99% for some people.

If it wasn't for Panama and Iraq, I wouldn't need a lot coverage, and as it stands, those things are covered through a worker's compensation plan vis-a-vis the VA.

I'd get $250,000 worth of catastrophic coverage and an ER policy of $50,000 which would cost me a whole $26/month.

Okay, so I'd have to give up eating Chilean sea bass twice a month for just once a month. I'm pretty sure I'll survive.





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Oh?
It looks like comparisons to the 1918 Pandemic was the topic of discussion.

Yes, Fl is below NY.

 

Give some thought to how your life would be if there were no businesses. Yet you attack them. Pardon me while I attack government which actually does hurt the nation.

 

So you don't understand what he actually said.

 

It's true. I only read Klingon.

 

Um you do realize he was talking about Global Corporatism, and not business in general right?

 

Congratulations, text book strawman.

 

When I signed on to the ACA website, what did I see?

about 20 different health care providers, all of them private enterprises, competing for my business.

"Bigger government" is a right wing thought-terminating cliché, and is utterly meaningless.

UHC will cost society less, because the insurance layer will be removed, resulting in a tax, yes, but there will be NO PREMIUMS., so the tax will be less than the premiums that used to be paid.

That freed up cash means society will have MORE DISPOSIBLE INCOME, and that will spur the economy.

 

I, and more than half your fellow countrymen, disagree. I am already eligible for VA benes, but I want nothing to do with them because anything government touches causes similar results to a monkey f-ing a football. Most people realize this, and therefore do not want your "universal coverage" because of the downsides associated with it, like waiting lists and incompetence.

So, you can keep crying into the ether about how bad you want universal coverage because you don't think it's fair that you are expected to pay as you go, but that's just too bad.

Where did I say the first thing about covid? The death rate is 100% because birth is 100% fatal, and all even the best healthcare money can buy can do is delay the inevitable. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, everyone accepts that death is inevitable, but pretty much everyone wants it to be as far down the road as is possible.

 

This is misleading. The health care dollars are being spent, anyway.

So, if, in CA, people are paying a state tax for CA UHC, and paying a federal tax for ACA for the rest of the country, that's being taxed twice, and THAT is the reason it cannot work for an individual state, which is not a calculus you can use to determine whether or not it will work nation wide.

 

Of course we can't. We have to support Israel, so they can have universal health care.

 

You're kidding, right? It isn't obvious to you that when you go from a pay-as-you-go system to a "buy now, pay later" one that purchasers become less price sensitive because of a "It's only a few more cents per month", and "I won't be paying for it for years anyway" mentality? You have to have that explained to you like you're five?

It's the exact same psychology behind why people don't care what a car costs, but rather what their monthly payment is, which is why car loan terms have been getting longer. There's scuttlebutt about creating 40-year mortgages, too. All because payment is what matters to buyers, not the price. They couldn't care less if a house (or an education) is $330,000 or $380,000 or more, as long as the payment doesn't go up.

On a side note, I would love it if 40-year mortgages would become a thing, because it would make the cost of my home rise even more than the 325%+ that it's done since we bought it in March of 2016.

 

Excuses or not, because our Governor actually "allowed" the citizen of the great State of Florida to open their businesses and walk around without masks, we were mocked by leftists of all stripes for months, because they were soooo scared of a virus that isn't all that dangerous for youngish, even moderately healthy individuals, they were absolutely convinced that "any day now" so many people were going to start dying it would make Ukraine look like a walk in the park. They even nicknamed him "Deathsantis" because they knew it was coming.

Except...

They were wrong. The whole time.

Oops.

 

So, you think it's perfectly fair and appropriate to charge people who AREN'T using roads (or are using them less) to pay the costs for those who are? Do you think "the working poor" should pay less for a loaf of bread, pair of shoes, or cell phone by having more wealthy individuals pay a portion (or all) of their bills for those things?

It seems to me that the poor choices taken by your "working poor" buddies are actually the ones responsible for their lots in life, at least most of the time. To keep it as brief as is possible for me to do so, if you dropped out of high school, buddy, that's your OWN f-ing problem, and I am not the least bit sympathetic. If people would bother bettering themselves, whatever that means for any given individual, there wouldn't be a problem. But we don't ask, much less demand, that they do that. Instead we give them a list of free shyt as long as your arm that enables them to essentially do nothing except spend other people's money. Screw 'em.

If your only skill is the ability to push a broom, and even that requires periodic retraining, well, you get what you got coming, because somewhere along the line you made, and are continuing to make, some really poor choices.

Somehow, I feel the need to explain, for probably the 1,000th time, that I'm talking about able-bodied and able-minded adults. If you're like me, and you can't even clean your own ass without assistance, well, that's a different story.

 

You seem to forget the fact that goods of all sort are delivered to where you can purchase them from all over the country.

 

The government did a great job! You are living in a fantasy world. While trump was worried about Hunter's laptop, drinking bleach, and shining a light up his rear, Biden brought an effective end to the pandemic.

It will be with us forever [based on modern medicine] but the crisis is over thanks to Biden.

 

No really. The government is paying full monty for the pfizer vaccine, hence why it is "free" for those who chose that particular brand of the vaccine. This would include JJ and Moderna BTW.

 

Lmao thanks to Biden… thanks to Biden? Lol all night long. What did he do other than use the previous administrations vaccine and still surpass the deaths of the previous administration that didn’t have a vaccine in time to roll out?