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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (2884)	11/13/2007 8:20:33 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

You assume US care would be downgraded. Care would either be downgraded or costs would go up. There's no getting around that. If we cover more people without cutting service, then costs go up because the number of covered goes up. If we cut service to keep costs constant or lower...

To: Road Walker who wrote (2884)	11/13/2007 10:24:08 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

1 - That's not true. You assume US care would be downgraded. Not a given by any means. It logically follows from the assumption that "chances are that the people (in the US) who are covered are getting better results (than people in Europe" , with the minor extension to that assumption that the extra resources we put in to medical care are at least part of the reason that people with decent or better insurance coverage get better care in the US. Inherent in those assumptions is that either a single government payer plan would pay less, and for the people who are currently covered, have worse results, or that it would try to meet the standard of those currently covered in the US and thus cost more. 2+3 The European industrialised countries pay 50% per capita less than we do. They pay less, with much cheaper doctors, cheaper health care workers in general, less defensive medicine, lower malpractice insurance costs, and other related increases of costs do to our legal system, less expensive prescription drugs, less use of experimental treatment, and at least at the margin less massive use of resources for very underweight babies, and very old very sick people, in situations where the odds for either are very low. For the people who continue to be covered by private insurance there would be no reason for American costs to go down. From the people who are currently uncovered, you would get extra demand for medical services. The only group who's costs might go down are the people who are currently covered privately but who switch to a government insurance program, and there costs would be lower only, or at least primarily because the government would probably limit what it pays in a way similar to Medicaid, which would result in less choices for doctors and poorer care. (Poorer care not only being my own opinion, but the logical conclusion of the temporary assumption made to develop this scenario. That people with private coverage do better in the US, than the people in most single payer systems. Well it is true that we were specifically talking about European government health insurance, and I suppose things might be different in the US, but once you accept that things might be different in the US you weaken the "health care is much cheaper in other countries" argument for universal care.) 4 - "Gold plated" universal care. A level of coverage and care equal to the what the well insured in the US currently get. Now your probably massively increasing cost. BS. The very rich get "gold plated" coverage. I don't think gold plated universal care is very likely, but it is a 4th possibility (probably the least likely of the 4). If that possibility does come to pass than the massively increased cost point will also come to pass.