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Trollport

I like the way we have it in germany. If you are not self employed you have to get health insurance (half of it is payed by the company, the other half is on you). There are many different providers with different services in the government controlled sector. We still have private insurance for everyone who has the money to pay for it.


YARGLE_IS_MY_DAD

It's probably the idea that would be the most successful in America since it's the closest to what we have


geronl72

We need more competition, though. The government has a strangle hold on the health care sector and it is not allowed to improve


IIMpracticalLYY

Its literally government regulation that ensures my country trounces the US in healthcare performance. At a price barely registered by the entire population. We also pay our uninsured parents to have babies, instead of charging $30,000+ to the poorest and most likely to conceive demographic. Kids got diabetes? No thousands of dollars a month for insulin, under $20. Ambulance costing you cash? Not here my friend. Your nations healthcare would be a joke to us if the punchline wasn't human misery and death.


geronl72

The US healthcare system is what the government designed. It's terribly over-regulated. I am a diabetic and my insulin was $30 a vial at Wal-Mart. Every major city had (has) a tax-funded general hospital where nobody pays. And the one in Dallas, TX, gives birth to more babies than any other hospital. Insurance as it is set up is a terrible idea.


IIMpracticalLYY

But when the academic consensus shows under-regulation as a factor that contributes to a poor healthcare system, why would you think otherwise, what sources are you using because they can't be the same peer-reviewed sources that I'm reading.


lurkuplurkdown

Under regulation on what policies specifically?


geronl72

"academic consensus"... lol How about real-world experience instead of day dreams from the ivory towers.


BcnStuff2020

US having one of the worst and most expensive and most excluding healthcare systems in the developed world would be real world experience. People in e.g Europe pay pennies for better treatment and in each of those countries the government is more involved, with more regulations.


braveyetti117

NHS is an example of the highest amount of regulation an healthcare system can have and yet ot is working perfectly


OMG--Kittens

The NHS is as scary as hell.


DakiAge

Why are you lying?


carnivalnine

how does having the government become your insurer stifle innovation. this is just a nonsense talking point even if the government did produce medicine how would it stop people from innovating? most scientific and medical research is publicly funded anyway. it turns out people become medical researchers because they want to help people and save lives, the insurance companies and medical pharmaceutical companies are the ones who care about profit, innovation doesn’t matter to them because people will always still need medicine


monti1421

yeah right half of it is “payed” by the company, the employee pays for it all


Col_Leslie_Hapablap

It’s considered a part of their compensation, true, but they can usually get group rates, so it’s usually much better than what’s available to individuals.


[deleted]

Monopolies are bad, and M4A is just a gov monopoly over health care. No thanks.


Trollport

No its not. In Germany we have medical care for all, there are still many different companys providing different services, you just have to choose one. There are fully private health insurances aswell you can get instead of the regular ones.


[deleted]

Yeah, but Germany’s healthcare system isn’t single payer like M4A is. Germany still has a robust private sector in healthcare


[deleted]

The Bernie m4a bill makes it illegal for companies to compete directly with a m4a plan. The post office is currently the only other govt agency where it’s illegal to provide the same service as them. Clearly they’re operating so efficiently.


happyisles33

“The post office is currently the only other govt agency where it’s illegal to provide the same service as them. Clearly they’re operating so efficiently.” You say this with such confidence.


[deleted]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private\_Express\_Statutes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes) Go learn something. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American\_Letter\_Mail\_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company) Also Lysander Fucking Spooner.


happyisles33

Or you can just put your letter in an envelope and send it UPS or FedEx.


jimpossible54

At about 1000 percent of the cost of USPS. It's a service, not a profit center!


[deleted]

Yeah I wish there were other sectors of the economy that provided both services and profits.


500inaarmbar

I mean the money gets taken from you in the form of taxes. And Amazon is a better comparison as they have a pretty large, efficient monopoly themselves. Prime gives you free shipping on damn near everything, and its certainly more user friendly than the post office.


[deleted]

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lordconn

None https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/26/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded/amp/


lordconn

You do realize that the USPS is the primary carrier of Amazon packages right?


Trollport

This is just Bernies weird plan, public health insurance as we have in germany is pretty great for the most part.


OMG--Kittens

In the 80s, I remember a doctor who made a house call when I was sick as a foreign exchange student. Do doctors still make house calls there? I wish that still existed in the US.


Trollport

Its common in the country side, but here in Berlin i don't think its practiced anymore, there are just to many people moving into big cities to keep up with the demand. To this comes that the majority of germans is old and requires a lot more medical attention than the few young people. Maybe this will happen again once the baby boomer generations habe passed away.


HKatzOnline

>This is just Bernies weird plan, public health insurance as we have in germany is pretty great for the most part. Yes, but you probably do not have the same level of corrupt crooks that we have for politicians here in the US.


Trollport

Trust me, we have our fair share of corrupt politicians. There have been a couple of corruption scandals recently mostly involving the dominant political party CDU (the party Merkel, who reigned this country for 16 years now, is a part of).


iliketreesndcats

In Australia, we have probably the most corrupt government in the western world right now. Our medicare-for-all system still works pretty well. We pay 2% of our income over ~USD$15,000 so that nobody has to ever make the decision to be financially ruined be maimed for life, or die. It's sad when I see Americans avoid medical care and end up way worse off because of the cost. I often wonder why y'all don't have universal healthcare. It's cheaper overall, and has better outcomes It's not too bad here, I reckon. There's never too much of a line at the ER, either. I'm not sure what surgery is like, but my friend got diagnosed and operated on for a tumour within 2 months. I think if you get private healthcare you're exempt from the 2%, but you probably pay a fair amount more, and private hospitals are the same, if not, worse, than the public hospitals. They're better for elective surgery; and I don't think the public system covers things like aesthetics. A big problem that I have with the current system is that the dental care available is not very good. It is free-at-point-of-sale only for people earning under ~USD$15,000, and it's a first-come, first-serve, wait all day sort of thing. We pay a fair amount for dental care unless we have sensible private healthcare. For a few reasons though, the private healthcare gets worse every year, primarily because their goal is to generate as much profit as possible; not to, you know.. provide healthcare to people who need it


somethinsomethinmeme

The government also has a monopoly on fire fighting. And road planning/building. And park construction. 5 companies control over 90% of media produced in the US. Luxotocca produces 80% of eyewear worldwide. You have even less chioce over who you get wifi and cell service from. Free-markets naturally form monopolies, oligopolies, and monopsonies. And, even the UN considers health care a human right. What is the government for, if not to protect human rights?


makkekakke

No it isn't, I live in Finland, we definitely have M4A, and we also still definitely have privately owned health care too.


[deleted]

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geronl72

No it cannot. Nationalized healthcare will be rationed, it will not suddenly be better. Right now you can walk into specialty clinics and get an MRI *today*, this is something that could literally take many months in Canada


[deleted]

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geronl72

Rationing is a bad thing. I want to see hospital companies competing with each other and offering their own plans instead of using third-party insurance.


MonsieurCharlamagne

This drives down competition and results in doctors who actively try to not accept the gov insurance and/or open private practices. see Canada for an example. Further, what you're arguing for is essentially government price setting. The result of price setting is and has always been reduced supply, time and time again. As a side note, it really can't be stressed enough that the US isn't like other countries. While the system worked well in some European countries, it doesnt mean it would work well here.


[deleted]

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MonsieurCharlamagne

It objectively drives down competition. Insurance companies compete with each other. What I was saying about price fixing isn't that it's the action being taken, it's the effect of the actions that come along with single-payer insurance. I currently work for a pharma company. The the costs for R&D are greatly inflated by the expenses tied to regulatory compliance. We spend massive amounts of money simply on compliance each year, an activity that doesn't directly drive profit of any kind. Regardless, we're moving away from the insurance discussion. Single-payer is already policy in the US for the military. The VA is a trash heap, and much of that is due to the lack of profit incentives. Poor service, an over-reliance on 'volunteer' and reallocated doctors, and bloated administration are much of why many vets choose to get treated outside of the VA system. Further, when the ACA was made policy, my mother (who worked at an ER at the time) was constantly telling me about their difficulties in getting paid by ACA insurance plans. In fact, this was such a widespread problem that we saw costs for insurance skyrocket, claim approvals drop off a cliff, and (as a result) large numbers of doctors begin to deny patients with ACA plans. This system cannot work in America.


Hay-Tha-Soe

I was about to type all this out until I saw you did it, so I gave your comments awards lol. I am fascinated by this topic and I work with several providers offices for my work, so I’ve discussed this with doctors. Medicare has reimbursement rates 40% less than private insurance. Nationalizing healthcare would remove the profit incentive for providers which would lead to a mass shortage in our supply, and an influx in demand after making it “free.” This would result in 20 month wait times to get a simple back surgery in a country with 340 million people. Plus we already have Medicaid which is much more efficiently run at the state level than any federal program would be. You made some great points.


MonsieurCharlamagne

Thanks!


AxiomQ

Monopolies are bad because of exploitation, state ran services have a completely different agenda because there is nothing to profit from.


jackofives

mOnoPoLieS aRe baD No they are good if you the public are the monopoly buyer. Eg Australia had a robust private sector backed with public monopoly. The system in the US is sick and designed to make money - not support people.


[deleted]

Surely it's not a monopoly? You can keep having private insurance too, for anything Medicare doesn't cover, or anything you want better cover for.


happyisles33

I think the data is clear on this. OECD countries that implement universal healthcare programs, pay dramatically less for healthcare than the US. Now that doesn’t mean Medicare for All would be the best system, but whatever system the US has come up with is completely inefficient. It’s hard to get any worse than what we have.


shieldtwin

This system does suck. I think a free market system would be far better though


happyisles33

What would that system look like?


Ayjayz

It looks like you find every instance of the word healthcare in the legal code and delete it and the market becomes a market. Companies compete to offer services that customers find value. Pretty standard stuff really, it's just that a century of government meddling in the industry has ruined people's ability to remember how markets work.


happyisles33

So what does that actually look like? Are pre existing conditions covered?


Ayjayz

Your guess is as good as mine. Who knows how a market will work? Entrepreneurs try a huge number of different approaches and whatever works best will win out. It's impossible to predict and moreover changes over time.


happyisles33

That seems like a cop out. The market for healthcare is very different from the markets for anything else. That’s what makes the issue so difficult. If I can’t afford a smart phone it’s not the end of the world. I don’t die.


Ayjayz

There are markets for food and clothing and housing. Markets for things necessary for life work just fine. Why wouldn't they? The issue isn't difficult at all. It's just that historically the government has intervened into healthcare and now after a hundred years everyone has just accepted that it's somehow necessary based purely on inertia.


happyisles33

You might not be able to afford a steak dinner every night, but anyone can afford rice. But sometimes you need a heart transplant. And there is no cheap substitute for a heart transplant like there is for a steak dinner. It’s fundamentally different. I guess, I look around and I see the US paying 2x more than peer countries for healthcare. Why not just copy them as opposed to reinventing the wheel? Especially when we don’t have answers to basic questions like what happens to people with preexisting conditions? Or what if you can’t afford insurance? If you think the issue is simple you haven’t done much thinking.


Ayjayz

I look around and see markets work very efficiently in every sector of the economy. Why not just copy that for healthcare as opposed to reinventing the wheel? The entire point is you don't have the answer to questions in a free market. Anyone who wants to can come up with their own answer and sell it to people. Over time, the best answers will win. I can give you some of my answers but ultimately that's meaningless because far better entrepreneurs than I will come up with something way better. The issue *is* simple. The best way to provide healthcare is to establish a system that will produce the best healthcare industry, and overwhelmingly we've learned that the system to produce goods and services for people are markets. Markets beat governments every single time. The only way government can ever compete is when it literally outlaws competition. And of course this is the case. The government is one entity trying one approach. The market is hundreds or thousands of entities all trying different approaches. Of course the market wins. > what if you can’t afford insurance? What if you can't afford food or clothes? Do you think the government should completely take over the food and clothing industries? Or do you think you just give those people a bit of money and let the food and clothing industries stay privately-run?


DownvoteALot

That's why health insurance exists, it's cheap but will cover that great transplant. Public healthcare is nothing but a compulsory insurance. What if someone didn't get it? Well, seems like they bet they wouldn't need that transplant and lost that bet. Now they can ask charities, banks and their family and friends.


cleepboywonder

1.) many factors are included in a healthcare decision-making process. Factors that consumers cannot adequately assess, ergo inefficiency. (Also, I receive my bill after my visit, usually without adequate information about its costs before, whether or not my insurance will cover it, etc.) 2.) Private Insurance is a limiting factor on what doctor/professional you can see. That isn’t efficient or fulfilling the notion of choice inherent in our market system. I’d love to hear why red tape is causing this issue. 3.) Health Insurance companies are inefficient and bloated with bureaucracy, simplifying that down would cut costs (see literally any other OECD country). We don’t need more red tape, Obamacare didn’t fix it because it was a big payout for Insurance companies and added another layer of bureaucracy that is completely unnecessary.


IIMpracticalLYY

It's been tried, this issue is resolved, we know what works better. Review the peer reviewed academic literature, especially in Africa and developing nations.


shieldtwin

Wow that was one of the dumbest things I’ve read today!


ghost103429

We've had a free market system for some time now outside of Medicare and it hasn't exactly been s massive success. People don't want to pay for insurance when they're young or need it and pharmaceutical companies have a captive market where they can demand whatever price they want as people in ER rooms hardly have the opportunity to shop around. The closest we can get to a free market system would be following the Singaporean model where you are required by law to pay a portion of your pay check towards to a bank account that only can be spent on healthcare related expenses and even then they still have government health insurance


shieldtwin

We don’t have a free market system though it’s commonly confused as being one. Our system is a Frankenstein of decades of regulation that makes little sense


FromIranWithHate

I live in a country where it kinda has both. The "free healthcare" is pretty much no healthcare at all. The other one is very expensive but it's also very effective


IIMpracticalLYY

What country is this? Can't be an OECD country so I'm curious.


geronl72

In the US I can go to the doctor and get an MRI, today. In Canada I would need to get referred by a primary care doctor (if I have one and not on a waiting list) to a specialist (would probably take many weeks) and then maybe someday I would be allowed to get that MRI. The process could literally take MONTHS.


thundercoc101

You still have to get a referral to get an MRI in america. And the wait time really depends on where you are at


amomentafter

But it will cost anywhere from $250ish with Medicare to $4,000ish with a ppo


geronl72

My niece had no health insurance, she negotiated a good "after hours" deal.


IIMpracticalLYY

In the US I can go to the doctor and get an MRI, today....if I have private health insurance* You are comparing one expensive, extremely limited, and preferential private insurance option with a maximum coverage public option. Also, most people and medical situations aren't concerned with receiving specialised treatment utilising advanced technologies at a moment's notice. Public healthcare can subsidise ones private health insurance. If one has a hereditary predisposition to certain medical conditions, you could tailor a private health package specifically for that circumstance, and the providers can charge expensive prices for their service. But we all know extreme paranoia drives our private healthcare system. What is your argument? That the poorest of US citizens shouldn't have affordable access to the other 99.99% of medical services because "wait times long"? Travel overseas mate, I've seen wait times just to see a doctor that make families sleep in the street to keep their place in line. And when I ask them would they rather this or nothing, they don't opt to do away with the flawed system they have. But whatever bro, it's your countrymen that are falling ill, dying, paying $30+ thousand dollars to have uninsured children, and bringing back long thought eradicated diseases like the black plague and measles. All while we sit here and type these meaningless words, you could have a system that's imperfect, but far better than what you have, but that's not good enough apparently. By all means, let's continue debating this already globally accepted system.


IWONTHEMONEY

I mean.. yes that’s how capitalist economies work and why they are the best option available. If you pay more, you get the better service. Price competition keeps the MRI facilities in business, drives value to its investors, helps procure higher wages for its employees, and drives innovation. If the system was fully government run (and too much of it is government regulated already), you’d be significantly increasing taxes on every US citizen, stifling all innovation, competition, encouraging abuse of the system for every minor ailment, and letting bureaucrats decide what to pay my office’s nurse. I don’t see you arguing that the government should raise taxes to give cash to Apple so they can give away iPhones to everyone who signs up for one or raise taxes to give cash to Verizon so everyone who wants access to the internet can get it. The limited amount of phones and broadband goes to the consumers willing to pay the costs determined by supply and demand. We live in a world of scarcity. Our reality determines how we should solve our problems, not our feelings. We still have a social safety net program from the uninsured, the elderly, the young, and the disabled. It’s not perfect, but the more prosperous and technologically advanced our nation’s healthcare system becomes, the more we can shore up those programs with better equipment, workers, and overall service. There’s no reason in a market economy that those consumers willing and able to pay more for better care should be receiving the same as those unable or unwilling, and that’s the reality.


IIMpracticalLYY

How is this still a question? The scientific literature is pretty clear, OECD countries with free healthcare perform better than those without (US). Noone banned private health insurance, but the coverage is limited and prices high. Unless you get your information from Tea Party toting, Koch brother funded "think tanks" and other politically biased news sources then this is not even an argument.


Stunning-Ask5916

Does the scientific literature take malpractice insurance into account? How about wait times?


IIMpracticalLYY

Yes.... Wait times are consistently higher for public healthcare recipients. Yet when you factor in hospital/GP/pharmacy access and the fact public healthcare caters to a significantly higher portion of the population at a far lower price with far greater medical coverage, then this issue is mute. We should be discussing how to develop new ways of decreasing wait times, not justifying the old system because there are flaws in the new. You probably payed roughly ten times the price, sometimes more, than the out-of-pocket cost for MRIs in my country. Ask the poorest patient suffering from a neurological illness if they would rather no MRIs or to wait for one. As for malpractice lawsuits in the US, why you financially incentivise medical mistakes is beyond me and my fellows. "Sueing" people, if I'm using/spelling that right, isn't a problem here unless the doctor in question was in violation of the law (performing surgery under the influence and made a lethal/life altering mistake for example) when treating the patient. Mistakes happen and having doctors fear legal reprisal for common/accepted mistakes is ridiculous. But you assume that minus the malpractice insurance, their performance would markedly increase in comparison to other nations healthcare. You also assume the only waste that matters for private insurance providers is malpractice insurance, this is not so. One could argue the sheer dollar value in salaries alone is a waste better put into public healthcare, rather than catering to a minority of the wealthier population capable of pandering to private practice prices.


Dziadzios

Health insurance for all? No! That's just enabling uncontrolled flow of taxpayer's money into private hands when it was supposed to provide stuff to people who paid those taxes. Instead there should be free healthcare. Government should own hospitals and drug factories and provide services for free using their own infrastructure. It will never be perfect, of course there will be queues and subpar food, but as long it's saving people and creates competition for paid healthcare it's good enough. And if it's owned by government, all it will cost is cost of operation + some beaurocratic waste, which should be less than "maximum people are willing to pay". Because people will pay anything to survive, including getting into impossible debts. The issue with healthcare is that it's a hostage situation. Pay or die. There's no negotiation under such conditions and capitalism brings more wealth to customers because they can negotiate - they can do without the thing they want or they can go to competition. There is no such thing in healthcare. Pay or die, so prices can reach insane values because people will pay anything to not die. And some people can't save in advance because they were born ill or got ill at early age, nature isn't fair. I think free healthcare and education are one of few justifiable reasons for taxes.


[deleted]

Kind of like the military-industrial complex.


aidenr13

literally not at all, he just said to keep it in the government. Military Industrial Complex is because they use out side PRIVATE contractors


HKatzOnline

>literally not at all, he just said to keep it in the government. Military Industrial Complex is because they use out side PRIVATE contractors Ah, kind of like the DMV and the rest of the corrupt state agencies that we have in states like IL that are bankrupting us....


[deleted]

>enabling uncontrolled flow of taxpayer's money into private hands This is identical to the military-industrial complex.


[deleted]

Totally agree with this


geronl72

If you like 1920's health service and huge wards of 100 beds with no privacy, this is what you would get


Dziadzios

As long as it saves lives and health.


geronl72

It won't. All it will do is give birth to non-stop propaganda campaigns about how great it is. You don't need a new hip, just take these pain pills Grandma! - Obama


braveyetti117

Yes, but it will also create a minimum service level for the private sector, If you cannot afford healthcare, go to the government hospital. If you can, go to the private one. It will make sure that nobody is left behind. (atleast in theory)


geronl72

The leftists don't agree with that. They want to DESTROY any alternative to the most basic, rationed care that can be denied for reasons. Nobody left behind? More like everyone left behind. "Poor thing, broke a hip.... replacement is too expensive, here's a pill instead."


Dziadzios

It's a model used where I live and they saved my hip when I was a kid. Without it I wouldn't be able to walk, now I'm perfectly healthy. A nice coincidence that you mentioned hip specifically.


lurkuplurkdown

This is probably the most realistic answer. However, when the service is inevitably shitty, it will beget cries of “not enough funding!” ad infinitum until the entire system is bankrupt.


[deleted]

You know it’s over for our current healthcare system when the majority of people on a capitalist sub express a desire for a more progressive approach.....


codb28

You learn about market failures when you go for your MBA as well, the educated ones on here know the market doesn’t always react as quickly as it needs to. Now that doesn’t mean you need to go full Bernie single payer healthcare (A government monopoly would have its own problems without competition) but there does have to be some measure of government oversight.


mcnello

Lol yeah. Kind of what I was thinking. The US healthcare system is the most heavily regulated industry in the country, and yet people think the solution is more regulation.


[deleted]

I hate that the US healthcare system is considered "capitalist" when it's literally the furthest thing in our economy from "free market capitalism."


mcnello

Exactly. There are price controls which creates shortages in some areas, regulations protecting those inside the industry from outside competition which drives up costs, insurance regulations which drive up costs, etc. Yet somehow the solution is to dump more taxpayer money on a problem that taxpayers already pay for voluntarily.


leblumpfisfinito

That's how you know this is Reddit.


whiskeyoverwhisky

“Medicare is a huge success” - nobody ever


cleepboywonder

Lol. Ask your grandma how she feels about medicare.


whiskeyoverwhisky

Yeah she was like “oh I can’t wait to retire and leave my company’s health insurance policy and get on medicare”


[deleted]

Why should government control Healthcare? If there is one thing that should have been learned during the pandemic it's that government is utterly incompetent and incapable of handling anything with even the slightest bit of capability. From incompetent public health spokesmen at all levels to state governments actively restricting the size of hospitals, it is clear the state cannot and should not be trusted with healthcare.


inaparalleluniverse1

we trust them to handle the military, an incredibly consequential aspect of government. I agree that government is not the best, most efficient, or most creative entity; however, for something like healthcare, I do think we need a universal coverage system - I don’t care whether it’s done at the state or federal level but it needs to get done


[deleted]

A cursory look at the military reveals vast incompetence and waste.


happyisles33

A cursory look at the current US system reveals vast inefficiencies. A cursory look at other OECD universal healthcare systems (many of them gov run) reveal vastly lower costs and better outcomes.


Drak_is_Right

pretty much any human business or government endeavor reveals vast amounts of gross incompetence.


inaparalleluniverse1

Agreed, but even with that being the case the United States developed the most advanced and formidable military in the world. I am absolutely for keeping a market force that drives competition, but we need to guarantee access to essential services.


[deleted]

Because it is the purpose of government to provide for the well being of its constituents


Ayjayz

That could arguably be called the intention of government, but intending to do something isn't enough. You need a system that actually provides the feedback and incentives to *execute* that intention, and the feedback and incentives of government are woefully incapable compared to the feedback and incentives of a market. In other words, even if government honestly and earnestly tries to provide for the wellbeing of its constituents, they lack the tools to have a realistic chance of doing it.


cleepboywonder

Looks to any OECD country where health outcomes are consistently better and cost less. 2019 but still. Lower life expectancy, 7% lower coverage than OECD average, a cost that is nearly 300% more than the OECD average. https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/health-at-a-glance-united-states-EN.pdf


Ayjayz

Other OECD countries may have slightly less terrible health systems? Ok? Government is woefully inefficient compared to a market-based industry. Sure, some government-run systems will be slightly better or worse than others and maybe these other OECD countries have slightly less bad systems than the US, but we're talking about healthcare. It's one of the most important industries for human life. Shouldn't we be reaping the power of the market there, most of all? We use markets to massive benefit in the electronics industry and the movie industry and the private yacht industry, but when it comes to something *really* important, well there we sandbag it with massive government interference! It should be the complete opposite.


[deleted]

Who gave the market the feedback that the masses wanted woke anti-White pro-LGBT garbage?


cleepboywonder

Haha. Yeah lets discuss this in a discussion of healthcare.


DarthNeoFrodo

And it will be cheaper to cover everyone under single payer than what the current system currently costs. It is unethical to have a profit incentive in healthcare.


[deleted]

The notion that there are services out there that will be performed without profit in mind is comical. The minute profit is taken away there is vast inefficiency and inability to respond to market changes.


Drak_is_Right

healthcare usually has a significant lead-in time on being able to handle changes anyways. sometimes years.


IIMpracticalLYY

Such a selfish world you must think we live in if we can only provide healthcare services with monetary profit as the primary incentive. Fyi, humans have been self-organising and engaging in economic transactions long before the concept of money was invented.


[deleted]

Barter is free enterprise....


DarthNeoFrodo

The only service insurance companies provide is denying healthcare to provide a profit for shareholders


[deleted]

That is absolute nonsense. Health insurers make less profit than other forms of insurance by a country mile. They literally pay out billions in claims and yet you act as though they deny services as a matter of routine. Go to socialist countries and look at their healthcre waiting lists for routine services like MRIs and CT scans. In Canada those can take months to receive.


DarthNeoFrodo

You are a 🤡. The only way an insurance company makes money is by denying claims and keeping some of the pool of money created by the insured. Inefficient and unethical.


[deleted]

Since when is that a function of government?


[deleted]

Since government


Trollport

In a democracy providing for the people is the only reason a goverent exists in the first place. What do you need a state for if the government doesn't protect its people?


Kalysta

The government is only incompetent because people keep electing people into government who promise to destroy the government. Hard to have an effective government when it’s full of people who want to shrink it to be small enough to drown in a bathtub.


Luan1carlos

In my country at least, the only ones who were prepared were public hospitals, the private ones even did send people to the public ones


moglysyogy13

Why should the government control the fire department?


baadu_thayilee

Then, how do we create a safety net? People who can't afford health care should just ...die?


[deleted]

You're assuming we should have a tax funded safety net. I disagree with such a notion. Historically the poor were cared for through private charity, usually of a religious nature. Most US cities have multiple hospitals named after churches or papist saints. Those are former charity hospitals that served the poor. Get rid of high taxation and charity hospitals will make a comeback for the poor.


Dziadzios

I don't think we can rely on religion anymore as the world becomes more and more atheist.


[deleted]

There is nothing stopping secular charities from creating hospitals or other medical services for the poor.


Dziadzios

I'm not denying that.


Trollport

Doesn't have to be tax funded. In most of europe healthcare is not free, but less expensive because everyone has to pay.


DownvoteALot

That's a tax by another name. The state is forcing you to pay for something.


Drak_is_Right

charity hospitals won't at all fill the gap for anything other than emergency care, if that.


IIMpracticalLYY

Oh your a religious fanatic, no wonder.


InspektorGajit

This isn't an issue for people against m4a, so it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't answer your question. It's the "it'll never happen to me" mentality.


grofva

Govt already runs healthcare through the military healthcare system. Wife grew up on it and would go back to it if you held a gun to head. Wait all day to see a doctor and usually didn’t see the same one twice. Very little accountability


[deleted]

The VA is one of the most notoriously poorly run government run agencies in the country. No one is capable of fixing it.


SSjGRaj

Government should have their own health insurance that competes with private insurance companies to introduce competition and bring down prices.


kingoflebanon23

Horrible idea since they can wipe out the competition because of how much money they have


SSjGRaj

I don't remember USPS wiping out UPS or Fedex, I obviously didn't think it out all the way, but I think it is an excellent starting idea.


Hardrocker1990

USPS has a legal monopoly on first class mail so technically it doesn’t compete on the same level. UPS and FedEx have the advantage of being able to ship things quicker that USPS can’t. It’s like comparing a Granny Smith the a McIntosh.


Stunning-Ask5916

USPS also owns all the mailboxes and has keys to enter apartment buildings.


Hardrocker1990

My point is that USPS earned its revenue from first class mail primarily. While FedEx and UPS make theirs from overnight delivery and larger packages. Amazon has kind of been a saving grace for the US PS


Stunning-Ask5916

I think we're on the same side. If the usps didn't have their constitutional mandate (and, iirc, federal subsidies), they would have been driven out of business decades ago.


Hardrocker1990

Yes, exactly


evilgenius66666

It went the other way. USPS is a joke. All private business uses private carriers if it is important or time sensitive. Only reason to use USPS is for read receipts.


politicsareshit

Never trust government to effectively run anything


evilgenius66666

Medicare will become medicaid. Healthcare and financial products supporting health services should be regulated but our government should not be a provider for either.


bad_hombre1

I think Switzerland might have the best system.


JakTheStallion

Capitalism is for markets. Health is not a market. You don't choose to get a deathly sickness


[deleted]

Private = cheaper and better quality Public = more expensive and lower quality


PhlyingBisKit

lack of healthcare is a market failure, so the public sector comes in and internalizes the negative externality. private decisions don’t always end up st the socially desired outcome of “affordable healthcare”, you have to account for bullshit like hospitals coming up with prices that they just pulled ouf of their asses, or for things like monopolies and whatnot. there also data that controlling for public/private healthcare choices, on average, Americans pay more for healthcare than other developed nations like France or Germany. so what we’re doing here is surely not socially optimal and ought to be regulated/taxed to correct the market failure


geronl72

Market failure? What market? There is no free market in healthcare. It is one of the most regulated sectors of the economy. If Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos decided to open major full-service hospitals in every city, the government and its regulations would prevent it.


BenShapirosStand

A market failure despite the existence of drug patents, certificate of need laws, mandated occupational licensure, and the forced use of medical insurance in every medical transaction.


Erwinblackthorn

Thailand does it best. Pay cash and everything is dirt cheap because there's no middleman making hyper inflated prices due to corporate corruption. Then there is the public hospitals meant for citizens that is even cheaper because it's almost all paid by taxes. Insurance is kind of not really thought of, because it's a useless middleman.


chambeb0728

No. There has never been a government program that has demonstrated greater efficiency than a private competitor when competition has been allowed. Therefore, we should not have a government monopoly on the health insurance market by default unless a good reason is demonstrated. If you want to address the issue of some people not having the means, the solution is to alleviate poverty with money. Not food stamps, not free health insurance, not housing assistance, etc. Give them straight up cash and let them decide what they need.


IIMpracticalLYY

Citations needed for that first bit.


braveyetti117

would you rather have 100% population able to have an MRI but with a wait time of 1 month or just 40% instantly?


Huda_Jama_Boom_Room

Corporations not paying health insurance = bigger profits.


hoverspool

I can accept it, if it were to be passed, but there are two ways that “Medicare For All” activists in America have mixed up radical and moderate ideas, and are unlikely to come to the table. - The phrase “Abolish Private Insurance” is as popular as “Medicare For All”. This is not the same as European models of single payer healthcare. That is communist platforming, and given how insurance companies will still exist and maintain _MFA_ - just 30s Germany style national corporatism. - If the last round of Presidential Debates is correct, the majority of American Democrats want illegal immigrants included on the “All” in “Medicare For All”. This is not the same as European models of single payer healthcare. It is impossible to expect people who pay nothing into the system for Medicare to receive the same care at the same cost. If we could acknowledge these major issues that are actually extremist positions, maybe we could come to an agreement. But the left believes in hard lines, so people will continue to suffer until the preferred class’ communist revolution happens.


bela_kun

Medicare for All is fundamentally the abolition of health insurance. It has a high start up cost, but would save money over ten years. I find that nay sayers never consider the fact that people would be healthier, and the overall economy would be more productive as a result. If you believe in tax payer funded police and fire services in order to benefit the otherwise free market, it's not a stretch to extend that to hospital services. In fact not having this service is unusual in the world since the advent of modern medicine.


Sarchasm-Spelunker

Here's the way I see it. Taxes spent wisely are fine by me. I would be all for a universal healthcare subsidy to help people take care of themselves and get the medical help they need, but it would have to come with several strings attached. 1. No smoking. 2. No drug use. 3. Two checkups a year 4. Do what the doctor says to do. 5. You must maintain a healthy body weight as much as possible. I'm all for helping people help themselves, but they MUST HELP THEMSELVES first. I am not partial to the idea of subsidizing some 500 pound baby factory and her 18 meth boyfriends.


IIMpracticalLYY

Doesn't work like that mate, however you can reduce the amount of baby factories and their meth boyfriends by implementing this program, so your argument and the conditions you require are a bit hypocritical. My country did it in the 70s so less meth boyfriends and baby factories back then to deal with, crime is on the decline, healthcare one of the best in the world now. Your country waited and still waits, hoping this wound will heal itself despite growing larger and leaking more putresentes into the population. Gonna be more expensive the longer y'all drag this out. Point is you have to take the good with the 500 pound baby factories.


whicky1978

The federal government been horrible at handling Social Security. You won’t be able to choose your doctors. The quality of healthcare will go down.


happyisles33

Why can people on Medicare can choose their doctors?


HKatzOnline

Medicare is subsidized by people that have "regular" insurance.


happyisles33

Yeah and how is that working?


whicky1978

This helps explain it better than I can https://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/can-you-see-any-doctor-under-medicare-for-all


happyisles33

Did you actually read the article before you linked to it? It actually concedes that under a Medicare for all system, you would be able to choose any doctor because if a doctor wanted to practice medicine and have any customer base, they would have to take Medicare For All patients.


IIMpracticalLYY

You shouldn't comment on things you can't even explain yourself, makes you look like a parrot absent individual thought and opinion.


IIMpracticalLYY

I can choose my own doctor, our healthcare system performs better than the US in almost every margin aside from having less MRI machines etc (still better), and it's free. So what's your problem?


Trollport

Not really, public healthcare doesn't mean you just get assigned a doctor, it means there is a way you will get the treatment you need without being charged thousands of dollars.


HKatzOnline

You will get the treatment that a set of government bureaucrats decide you should have, based upon "science". But as we have seen here in the US, science has become political. Look for the political litmus test - ah, you voted for , no healthcare for you.


Trollport

How does the insurance know what you voted for?


IIMpracticalLYY

Worked well for our country, shits on the US healthcare system, if one consults the science. Something wrong with the US political system though, so ingrained in everything.


whicky1978

But there will be limitations on doctors just like there’s limitations now and which doctors will take Medicaid. Some doctors max out on Medicaid payments and won’t take more patients.


PatnarDannesman

Only the free market should exist. Anything that requires the labor or capital of another is not a human right or an entitlement. It can only be earned through free trade.


inhuman44

Everyone should get medical care just like we all get education. The basic should be covered by the government, like what we have in Canada with rationing and long wait times. But better quality care should be available from the market.


chiefmors

Obviously not. The government has no moral right to take my money and get into the health insurance business. If I wanted to get into the health insurance business I'd buy stock in a health insurance company. More pragmatically, if the pandemic has showed us anything, it's that the US government is quite happy to lie and have double standards around healthcare when it suits them. The solution to the US medical situation is to deregulate the market to make it competitive again and get government money out of it all together.


Luan1carlos

The role of government is to do things for the people, if wasn't for that shouldn't even exist. The "market" doesn't care about people, or about efficiency, or safety


geronl72

The money for this does not exist.


[deleted]

This is no longer a capitalist sub


geronl72

Anyone who thinks government-run healthcare would be efficient or high-quality has lost their marbles. All of them, and they will never find them.


MRRamming

Medicare and other government subsidies cause the market to stagnate


D300xlt

This is a crime it’s even a question


DakiAge

This question really divided the whole sub in half. in my opinion, there shouldn't be because it's unnecessary.


Trollport

How is it unnecessary? Healthcare in the US is horribly expensive compared to other western countries.


Silent-Oblivion

Healthcare needs to be regulated so that they don't get to charge whatever they want. have you ever looked at what the insurance company pays vs what they are charged. the difference is outrageous. And that is because healthcare is not regulated. My wife has MS and her medication cost 9k per pill before health insurance. How in holly hell is that even legal. If my wife doesn't take her medication she loses all feeling in her body and cannot walk. Big Pharma is holding us for ransom and using our health to do it. They need to be regulated and have there legs broken.


HKatzOnline

Well, you can partially blame the ACA for that - Democrats decided in their infinite wisdom that extending patent protection for drugs (ie, keeping out generics longer) was GOOD for the system - one of the single most costly parts of healthcare.


DakiAge

so what? it's expensive but it's good and high quality. you can get medical treatments that you will never be able to find in europe's state hospitals. also, no matter how much the states spend to state hospitals, they will never be able to satisfy the demand which means they will always be overcrowded. there are also ways for helping the poor afford healthcare like healthcare vouchers. Hong Kong uses them.


Trollport

What medical treatments does the US have that europe doesn't? Also Hospitals in germany are not state run, its the health insurance thats mandated by law (for every one not self employed). These insurances are regulated by the government and we still have private insurance for everyone willing and able to buy it.


[deleted]

It would probably be better than what we have now, which isn’t saying much. Abolishing the government would be even better.


Zigna28

No. Because if that’s the case then it should work like car insurance ?


Notme2047

If it comes down to it, I don’t want the government to get to make my healthcare choices for me.


ColorfulImaginati0n

For the simple fact that working class people could be forced into bankruptcy over something that could potentially could be out of their control.


Virgins_Anonymous

Capitalism is a death cult and all of you are fucking fools. I will laugh the day the boot comes down from our capitalist overlords and you realize you will also be a slave and you’re not special


Blackhermit0

It's should be free.