Does nationalised healthcare really not work?

[HisServant]

Because in the for-profit system, you and I buy drugs, not the gov't. In the national system the gov't buys the drugs and uses its leverage to negotiate prices with the drug companies.


The data is extremely clear. Nationalized systems are superior to for-profit systems in terms of cost, services, and outcomes.

But the government has already set the price for the drugs by negotiating a price with the drug manufactures.... therefore it sets the prices that you and I pay for the drugs... and government negotiated stupidly high rates under George W. Bush's watch.. which set in motion an ever escalating drug price inflation model.

FYI, if the government hadn't stuck it's nose in the market, the costs of ALL drugs would be significantly lower for everyone in the country.

And I would like to see what data you are crowing about, because all I have seen show that medical care is over inflated in both the private and government models.

 

[Levolor]

I think there will be very little acknowledgement of the fact, because we can spend $600 billion from taxes on a fighter jet that doesn't work, but don't you dare suggest we use tax revenue to make people healthy and happy.

Indeed.

:mmph:

If the USA used the money spent on the war machine to instead help other countries, and ourselves, this world would be far different.

 

[Levolor]

All I know is I used to be able to have an option for emergency and hospitalization plans. No longer.

My health insurance has doubled or more since obacare.
It is more expensive than monthly Mortgage.
The deductibles are outrageous. the time you satisfy deductibles you are broke.
choice of doctors has been limited and cant see my old doctors.

I want to say that this is criminal, but don't know of any laws that would agree.

Nevertheless, this is criminal.

 

[PureX]

If we are discussing round the subject rather than shouting our party line out, I think its fair to suggest that large part of thew differences in cost are due to the much higher litigation/insurance costs in the states.

All you have to do is look at the profit margins of the corporations involved in health care and you will see huge increases over the last 30 years. Increases that other businesses couldn't even dream of (except perhaps the oil companies). So although litigation does cost them, it's not the real reason that we Americans are paying double per capita what all the other modern nations of the world are paying for their national health care systems. The real reason is price gouging, pure and simple. That's not a "party line" issue because both parties take the bribe money and make sure the system stays rigged in favor of those corporations that are gouging us all. Which I pointed out in my previous post.

I'm sure if they could be taken out we would see a different picture, not sure it would be , but that fact does distort headline figures.

Not much. The truth is that it's the doctors who are hurt most by the threat of litigation, not the hospitals or the insurance companies or the drug companies or the medical product manufacturers.

As a note the UK is not socialists, just we have a healthcare system that applies socialist principles.

The best and most productive years in the U.S. were the years in which we practiced responsible socialism (from the end of WW2 to the end of the 1960s). We taxed the wealthy and used the money to massively expand infrastructure, create jobs, provide education, set up social safety nets for the old, sick, and unemployed, and improved the overall quality of life in the nation for almost everyone.

But since the 1970s, we have been slowly falling back into the habits and practices of the days of the 'robber barons', when a small wealthy elite could accumulate so much money and power that they could literally start wars and manipulate global markets, all in the service of their own bottomless greed. This is the situation we are in, now, and those wealthy elite are making big profits off our Darwinian health care system in which they can charge enormous mark-ups on everything because the buyer cannot refuse to buy their products and services.

Health care is a captive market. And unless price caps are set, the providers are going to price-gouge. Which is exactly what they are doing in the United States. And which is exactly what the other nations of the world that have good quality national health care at half the cost, are not allowing to happen in their countries.

Everything else is a smoke screen. Price gouging, and price caps to stop the price-gouging, are the issue, plain and simple.

 

[PureX]

Add all that up and it leads to what should have been an obvious fact from the beginning, i.e., a for-profit health care system is much more expensive than one run for the public good.

That's not only true of health care, but other necessary public services, as well. But the propaganda in favor of privatization has been so relentless, and people love to hate government so much, that it's impossible to get people to accept this fact. They absolutely will not recognize that the problems with government are not the governance, but the corruption. And the solution is not less governance, but less corruption.

But we can shout this from the rooftops until we turn blue, and the government-haters will not hear a word of it.

 

[Jose Fly]

But the government has already set the price for the drugs by negotiating a price with the drug manufactures.... therefore it sets the prices that you and I pay for the drugs... and government negotiated stupidly high rates under George W. Bush's watch.. which set in motion an ever escalating drug price inflation model.

Not quite. In the US system, drug companies tell Medicare how much it costs to manufacture a drug and Medicare adds some kind of acceptable margin (cost-plus-pricing). Then hospitals base their prices for other customers on what Medicare reimburses, so this scheme sets the tone for the entire system.

But the very first step in the system is the drug companies telling the gov't the starting price. There is no negotiation. And as we've seen, the GOP specifically made it illegal for the US gov't to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

FYI, if the government hadn't stuck it's nose in the market, the costs of ALL drugs would be significantly lower for everyone in the country.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight....if we just let the pharmaceutical companies charge whatever they want, prices would be lower! Just like with cable, internet, gas.....

And I would like to see what data you are crowing about, because all I have seen show that medical care is over inflated in both the private and government models.

Nationalized systems are superior to the US for-profit system in both cost and effectiveness.

 

[Jose Fly]

That's not only true of health care, but other public necessary services as well. But the propaganda in favor of privatization has been so relentless, and people love to hate government so much, that it's impossible to get people to accept this fact. They absolutely will not recognize that the problems with government are not the governance, but the corruption. And the solution is not less governance, but less corruption.

But we can shout this from the rooftops until we turn blue, and the government-haters will not hear a word of it.

Identity politics. The individual mandate was developed by the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, championed by Speaker Gingrich, and implemented by Gov. Romney. So conservatives think it's a great idea, right?

Nope. As soon as Obama picked it up, it suddenly became a gateway to Marxism.

Funny how that works.

 

[PureX]

Identity politics. The individual mandate was developed by the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, championed by Speaker Gingrich, and implemented by Gov. Romney. So conservatives think it's a great idea, right?

Nope. As soon as Obama picked it up, it suddenly became a gateway to Marxism.

Funny how that works.

Romneycare/Obamacare, whatever.

It's not going to work because it doesn't address the fundamental problem of our health care system. Which is the massive price-gouging going on at every level of health care (drugs, insurance, hospital and technical), with the exception of the compensation to the health care workers, themselves.

That's why the Congress passed it. Because they knew it didn't address the real problem of price-gouging the sick and injured for massive profits. And it's why they would not even entertain Obama's original plan for a nationalized, single-payer system.

 

[HisServant]

Riiiiiiiiiiiight....if we just let the pharmaceutical companies charge whatever they want, prices would be lower! Just like with cable, internet, gas.....

In this case, the pharmaceutical companies would have been in direct competition with foreign companies producing the same drugs and their generic equivalents which would have driven down the prices. The current system is nothing more than cronyism that protects US companies even when their patents have expired... by not allowing foreign competition.

Nationalized systems are superior to the US for-profit system in both cost and effectiveness.

[/quote]

As far this article, its pretty bogus because the data behind it is sketchy.. its using the outcome based model for which there is little data to draw on within the US due to HIPPA and other compliance regulations (that was pretty much dismantled with the ACA, fyi.. anything that has to do with the ACA is exempt from HIPPA).

Population modeling for outcomes is relatively new all over the world and the ACA and congress is pushing for it big time... yet its effectiveness has never been proven.

 

[rexlunae]

Who said I am a conservative... actually, I am independent and if I had to actually align myself with a party, it would be the New Whig Party.

You describe yourself as more right than left, and the statement speaks for itself in terms of political alignment. If you believe that government is inherently inefficient and private enterprise is inherently not, you probably fall to the right of the spectrum.

And being independent doesn't say anything about your political ideology. It says something about your partisan alignment. Well, I'm an independent too, but I vote mostly for Democrats.

It's bad because of overbearing government regulation and the costs of uninsured and medicare/medicaid patients are more than the reimbursement rates so the deficiencies are passed onto private citizens and companies.

Did you notice how you responded to a question that called for a comparison without actually doing one? You don't have to tell me that government can be inefficient. You have to show me that there's something that could and would do better.

We are already seeing rationing and people leaving the UK and Canada to come to the US for treatment. In order for their systems remain solvent, there will have to be continued and deeper rationing.. its inevitable.

Nonsense.

It's not silly at all, its understanding human nature and its propensity to become lazy and bend any system to provide for their own comfort. By sun-setting all legislation and requiring voter participation, this trend can be better controlled.

I don't think you understand human nature half as well as you think.

 

[This Charming Manc]

You just socialized a large segment of your economy.

we socialised it about 60 years ago, but is part of the economy?

Are medical care and business the same thing?

Or is the error to healthcare as an economic not a social activity?

I'm sure you won't socialize any more of it.

:yawn:

We have privatized as much infra structure as I think the UK public will take.

Most western political systems embrace a mix of free market/regulated market/social enterprises, ours is no different.

We just change where we draw the lines and apply which principles, America has more free and regulated markets than Europe, its not a different system, you just apply it differently.

 

[aikido7]

Interesting article..

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/an-american-uses-britain-nhs-2015-1

wonder what folks make of this?

During the healthcare debate there were many stories circulating about people in the U.S. getting medical care from other countries.

It should be no surprise that things are not really black and white between America and other countries. There seemed to be plenty of time for people here to figure that out.

I, too, came to the conclusion that there were lots of fundamental differences between our system of medical care and others, and on balance a lot of other countries came across as much, much better in the care they give their citizens.

One country that really surprised me was Mexico. I met and read about several people who went to Mexico for operations, effective medicine, dental work and good doctor appointments. Also, the cost savings were pretty incredible.

That was super-surprising for me.

 

[aikido7]

...We just change where we draw the lines and apply which principles, America has more free and regulated markets than Europe, its not a different system, you just apply it differently.

This is a great point.

It's important, I think, to be able to recognize how things are carried out or applied are diverse and different.

The same thing can be implemented in different ways.

Like taxation or privatization, there are ways to effect these concepts in ways that are efficient and helpful for our citizens.
It's just that many of the GOP or the Libertarians are literalists.
It has become too evident that ANY connection of ANYTHING that can be tied to Obama--or blamed on him--automatically makes good ideas bad.

Obama sure as hell isn't perfect, but he is definitely not a tyrannical dictator and failure as a president, either.

 

[The Barbarian]

Hmm... those appear to be geese, not ducks. The message sent is subtly different thereby.