I think universal healthcare is stupid

a reply to: rockintitz

I have some bad news for you. By definition, when you are paying for insurance, you are paying for someone else. Be thankful with respect to healthcare if you don't actually need the insurance.

With respect to your OP, you only have the right to purchase insurance in the U.S. if your employer provides it. Absent Obamacare, which I am assuming you don't like, if you become unemployed, you will lose the ability to purchase insurance unless you don't have pre-existing conditions.

I retired last year at 54, I have millions in the bank, got myself into great physical condition and was denied insurance because I had a kidney stone, which in my case is an inherited issue from my parents and frankly quite minor. I would suggest to you be careful what you think it is not a right and the insurance companies only want your money. If something bad happens to you, well, best of luck. I am now only insured as a result of Obamacare. If that is repealed, it appears I will become uninsured even though I have plenty of money to pay for insurance. Weird system we have here in the U.S.

Back in the day, Kaiser Permanente used to insure everyone.
Your rate was based on your zip code. The system worked great. Healthy people paying in gave them enough revenue to cover the sickly ones.

Trouble is, other companies started rolling through and sniping all the healthy customers.


Most states have laws about what data an insurance company is allowed to use when setting your rate. So for example, when covering a business in Oregon, they can only ask age and gender for each employee (at least 15 years ago that was true... I have no idea now.)

Just change those rules, and you can fix the whole problem.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

Its more complicated. Even if an insurance company could only ask your age and gender, after the first year of providing insurance for an employer, they generate their own data. After a period of time, your insurance rates effectively become your actual costs plus a profit to the insurance company. Before retiring last year, I was a partner in a large accounting firm. So, I had access to a lot of data with respect to how this works. The real cost drivers in our system are greedy hospitals and greedy pharma companies along with too high a profit to the insurers. The problem is, the political sway of these organizations are strong. Why do you think Obama was made such a villain? (BTW, I am not an Obama fan at all.) the way he was? His policies were starting to get at the profits of too powerful a group, even if most are tax exempt. Hence, big money is behind spreading lies regarding how this really works.

Part of the reason they're greedy is because there are such high risks. Never know how many uninsured victims will roll in during a given quarter.


The other is, of course, the patents. It's one thing when only one company can make something. It's another problem when a given product is mandated, with no legal option to use substitution.


Now put both together, and that's when costs sky rocket. Take a product that is both A: Patented, and B: Legally required.

You've just told that company they can jack up the price as high as they want.


If voters would watch for that sort of thing, and be like "Waoh! Did you my representative just vote to make a patented product mandatory?!?!!?!?" And then auto vote that guy out, every time a rep votes favorably for even one such bill.

Then things might change.

originally posted by: flice

originally posted by: rockintitz
I think universally, in America, healthcare is already a right.
You cannot stop me from paying for health insurance. Checkmate, bigot.
Stop making me pay for someone elses health insurance. I don't want to do that.

Well... I think you post proves a lot what the opposite side or many europeans think about americans. Because your country was made and grew up the way it did, you are almost instinctively focused on individualism rather than unity.

Quite ironic to be honest, since a lot of americans seem very proud of being "american" but Ill boil that down to compensating for your lack of true unity.

If you didnt have enemies or someone else to contrast you as a nation, you would have to face the facts... that you are truly a divided people who do more disruption in the world than good.

That makes it impossible for you to adjust to or love universal healthcare because that would require you to care for other individuals as much as yourself and I really do think that for a lot of you thats not an option.

Thankfully I have grown up with universal healthcare. I never need to worry ever about affording to pay for medical care.
Ive been operated on, had my teeth straightened, gone through psychiatry and so on... and so have my kids and Ive have never paid anything....

I opted to sign up for additonal private coverage and you know what... the money I pay for that, I get a percentage back when I then have to buy perscription medication, see the dentist and so on....

Tell me whats not to like.

The tax money I pay, still leave me with enough to have a good life... i dont miss a thing.

I'm sometimes embarrassed by my "fellow Americans". This is one such occasion.

The OP is typical -- so many Americans have grown up with this "rugged individualism" crap and it's sickening. People like the OP will never truly get it. No matter how many success stories you tell of European (or otherwise) healthcare, no matter how much you say you are satisfied with it, they will fight it to the death.

Americans replaced the divine right of kings in Europe with a sort of mutated divine right to be free of morals. According to people like the OP, if you want nationalized healthcare, you're a welfare cheat, lazy and trying to steal his "hard earned" money. Sometimes people like the OP have a hard lesson dealt to them by life in America: they lose their job, or their investments collapse or some economic disaster and they're left without healthcare. Of course, their response would be "I planned for emergencies/I saved/I blah blah blah..." Great for you. Most people can't do that for whatever reason.

OP, you're an embarrassment just like the millions of other Americans who think and believe like you. You will never care about anyone more than yourself, you will always be the most important thing in the world to you. And you'll always consider yourself a victim of poor or less economically-fit people. You know, looking at it that way, you don't look much like a "rugged individual" anymore, do you?

a reply to: looneylupinsrevenge

My only point is we need to stop pretending universal healthcare “caring”, when zero caring is actually involved. In giving up our duty to care for one another to the government, all we’ve really done is given them more power while weakening ourselves.

What we might have done is taken healthcare into our own hands instead of giving the government monopoly over it.

originally posted by: BuckyWunderlick
a reply to: looneylupinsrevenge

My only point is we need to stop pretending universal healthcare “caring”, when zero caring is actually involved. In giving up our duty to care for one another to the government, all we’ve really done is given them more power while weakening ourselves.

What we might have done is taken healthcare into our own hands instead of giving the government monopoly over it.

Sad as it is, I would trust government healthcare long before I would trust you with my healthcare .

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: BuckyWunderlick
a reply to: looneylupinsrevenge

My only point is we need to stop pretending universal healthcare “caring”, when zero caring is actually involved. In giving up our duty to care for one another to the government, all we’ve really done is given them more power while weakening ourselves.

What we might have done is taken healthcare into our own hands instead of giving the government monopoly over it.

Sad as it is, I would trust government healthcare long before I would trust you with my healthcare .

You’re dependent on it. Sad part is, you have no one else to depend on.

originally posted by: BuckyWunderlick

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: BuckyWunderlick
a reply to: looneylupinsrevenge

My only point is we need to stop pretending universal healthcare “caring”, when zero caring is actually involved. In giving up our duty to care for one another to the government, all we’ve really done is given them more power while weakening ourselves.

What we might have done is taken healthcare into our own hands instead of giving the government monopoly over it.

Sad as it is, I would trust government healthcare long before I would trust you with my healthcare .

You’re dependent on it. Sad part is, you have no one else to depend on.

No I rely on me, always have always will.

You Les are deceptive, youve been banned many times, you have a multitude of accounts, you are wolf in sheep's clothing, the government is crooked yes but so are you, so yeah I put my faith in government long before a shiester like you.

a reply to: dubiousatworst

That's crap Man, poor old dude.

Whereabouts in the UK was this?

Without prioritizing through organ donation/replacement would become the domain of the rich.

Still wrong that the Man died waiting all the same, the system is not perfect, but its the only one we have.

That's the problem: It's a social status issue for people.

Look at cell phones. Early 90's, they start out as "car phones" because they're too big to carry around on your person. Only the insanely rich can afford them. And they do buy them.

Soon developers find they've pretty much sold all the "car phones" they're going to sell, because every person rich enough to afford the price now has one. So, to get another round of sales, what do they do? They improve it.

Each time they improve it, the rich buy again. And after the research is paid for, they start to sell the old model at a much cheaper price to the poor.

Each step of the way the rich paid the development and research costs, and the poor got the benefit of it. So today average people can walk around with a hand held personal computer more powerful than my family's desktop was in 2000.


Why? Because cell phones aren't an "everyone must have the same" product.

Would you rather have a "car phone" and everyone else have one too? Or a hand held personal computer "smart phone" but have to accept there's some rich guy out there with one better than yours?

Translating this to an analogous medical technology: which version of the story would better save your life?

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: dubiousatworst

That's crap Man, poor old dude.

Whereabouts in the UK was this?

Without prioritizing through organ donation/replacement would become the domain of the rich.

Still wrong that the Man died waiting all the same, the system is not perfect, but its the only one we have.

If the healthcare market worked like the cell phone market, nobody would ever die waiting for an organ.

Organ donation wouldn't be a thing. All organs would be 3d printed, and anyone who needed one would always get one.

3d printing organs is a totally feasible technology, but the research doesn't get enough funding (and competitive firms don't want in on it.) If it were ok to charge an unlimited price per organ, then there would be plenty of funding.

The rich would pay the research costs, and the poor would get the benefit.

His grandfather would get a low end organ. He'd have to deal with knowing some rich guy out there is getting a high end version of the same organ.

But it would work and keep him alive.

The "low end" organs of 2029 would be better than the "high end" organs of 2019. So when he gets his 2029 upgrade, he would laugh that he'd ever been jealous of that rich guy in 2019.

But the rich would still be getting even better organs than that.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

I'm with you there mate, 3d printed organs are indeed the future as long as it's not like RepoMan. LoL

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Not exactly one way traffic though is it?

1.4 million US citizens travel overseas for medical treatment in 2017

How many UK citizens declared bankruptcy due to medical costs? Not a single one. What about in the US? How about 4% of the population?. That's about 12 million people who bankrupted themselves because of being unable to afford to get medical help.

On the plus side at least the level of care in the US is among the best in the developed World. Oh wait...

a reply to: PaddyInf

Bang on mate.
My loved US friend knows if she gets cancer but doesn't wanna go bankrupt she can marry me and get treated in a heartbeat.
It ain't perfect here, but more perfect than it is for many of my friends around the world.
Two good mates of mine married friends from US so they could get critical treatment, total sham, they're just mates, not spouses, but when you love someone and your tribe can fix them #ing do it! ☺️

originally posted by: one4all

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus

originally posted by: one4all
Healthcare is one of the most bastardised crooked kick-back driven Industries on the Planet.....a Government run System that DID NOT WORK CROOKEDLY...would decrease the cost of the average medical engagement by at least 75%...and this makes free healthcare a reality anywhere in the world....jeepers we have prisons who can switch to bandages from making license plates....lol...

Everyone ASSUMES that the crooked criminal graft in the Industry will continue...but it will not.

The government cannot run anything efficiently. That is the reason why centralized control failed in the Soviet Union....not because it wasn't good people running it....those who want socialized medicine and other socialized programs keep trying to tell us that if only it wasn't crooked people doing it....if only the right people did it then it would work. www.libertynation.com...

There is something new on the Block...its called social-media based PUBLIC OVERSIGHT...….both the Soviet Union and USA were screwed by the same group....a Global group...we know that now because we know exactly who they are and exactly how they run their empires and exactly what corporations and assets they directly and indirectly control....this is 2019 not 1819.

In the past good people have STARTED Programs with potential which were then in ALL CASES GLOBALLY hijacked and bastardised.This doesn't have a snowballs chance in Hades of happening in todays world.Societal/Global Auto-corrections are now taking place...this is why we are seeing so much change so fast....its not just good guys against bad guys anymore the TIDE HAS NATURALLY TURNED.

ohhhhh "social-media based PUBLIC OVERSIGHT... You mean like facebook? Gee why didn't I think of that.

originally posted by: Silure
a reply to: PaddyInf

Bang on mate.
My loved US friend knows if she gets cancer but doesn't wanna go bankrupt she can marry me and get treated in a heartbeat.
It ain't perfect here, but more perfect than it is for many of my friends around the world.
Two good mates of mine married friends from US so they could get critical treatment, total sham, they're just mates, not spouses, but when you love someone and your tribe can fix them #ing do it! ☺️

The trouble isn't everyone getting care. That's fine.

The trouble is everyone getting THE SAME care.

If I could purchase coverage that included only generic (patent expired) drugs, and only patent-expired treatments (unless necessary life saving), it would probably be inexpensive coverage.

If the government decided to cover everyone that way, it probably wouldn't cost way too much.

But if everyone has to get the latest, state-of-the-art drugs and treatment, we're all giving up about a fifth or maybe a quarter of our earned incomes just for that. And it could get worse.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

No you mean, If the government decided to cover everyone that way, big pharma, and her chums, and their lobbyists would hang any administration silly enough to try up by the balls.

Canny screw with "there" money and profits in such a manner and not affect a major response.

In the us we fight very hard for the right to be screwed by the healthcare industry. And it acts a defacto 100% inheritance tax on all working class Americans.

universal healthcare = a la' Military Sick Bay.... Why Not ! ? ! it was good enough for the combat engineer Battalion I was at for 3 years...

But I guess the 'free loaders' demanding the Free Medical want a 12 Noon, roll-outta-bed reporting time and Free Meds too


the Military First Aid Clinic staff was lean... and really bad cases were passed to better facilities on-the-double

I got a million units for a STD I got from a shotzie and had a bout with flu which got the APC cure-all for a 3 day period but thats about all I suffered as a paper-&-pencil pusher in a HQ S-2 position


tell ya what, Phoenix AZ had a top end medical assistance program... they even had a Cab force who would drive you to appointment locations for RX treatment for a $2 fare... but you did need to call up the day before the Doctor/clinic/therapist appointment to the Cab/Van dispatcher to set up the door-to-door service
Meals-on-wheels, medical hardware like shower chairs etc. were also furnished by your personal health care advocate...


Perhaps the Gov't is edging society closer to universal services via the upgraded VA health services programs...an 'open source' of medical providers...
including the newly commissioned walk-in clinic kiosks operating within the places like CVS Pharmacy, specifically for Veterans (so far)…
I suggest that Medicare-Medicare clinics will follow suit that the VA launched during 2019 … here at zip 29577


hang on we're going community-socialist