I'd just like to point something out to those who think socialized medicine is a great thing.
In a free market, if you want to buy something, you buy it. The person selling it competes for your business with others selling it, and the prices go lower and higher based on the law of supply and demand. I know that healthcare has a lot of complex things that affect cost. But basically if I buy my own insurance and want to go to the doctor, I pay for it myself and get the services I pay for. Insurance might pay for some of it, but if I want the service, I can pay out of pocket.
In socialized medicine (which some of you seem to love), it's not quite that way. You think that medicine is "free" and that I can always have access to what I need. Not quite. You see, when someone else is taking care of you, you become indebted to them and at their mercy. If I stay in someone's house for the weekend, they decide how long I sleep by banging around in the kitchen at 3 am or letting their kids run through the hallways screaming. "Free" is kind of an illusion.
In "free" medicine, someone who makes more money than me pays part of what they earn, and that goes into a pool. When I need to go to the doctor, that pool is where the money comes from. Now here is the tricky part! Because there is only a certain amount of money in that pool, not everyone who wants that money can get at it. By getting "free" healthcare, you gave away your power to buy what you want and need.
If you are 25 years old and need heart surgery, you might get it. But here's where it gets sticky. What if you are 70 years old? Someone, who is not you, decides if you get surgery or not. Your name goes before a committee and they decide if the pool of (my) tax money will pay for your surgery. Hopefully you will get it. But you might not. And because you were depending on "free" healthcare, the cost of trying to pay for the surgery yourself will be ridiculously expensive. Good luck paying for it.
When I lived in England, I knew a man who had lost his father. I asked what his father died of. It was an illness that is commonly treated in the USA by private healthcare, but the NHS wouldn't pay for treatment, so his father died.
I am not an expert in Obamacare, or socialized medicine. But this is the basics of it. I just want all of you who think "Oh yay! now I get free healthcare and someone else pays for it!" to think about this. It will go great for you until you are too old or too sick to warrant someone paying for your medicine/surgery. And good luck if it's something you caused yourself (anorexia, drinking too much, obesity, smoking). "Free" isn't so free, after all.
Comments (76)
I hope our nation figures out a way short of socialized medicine. Since I am 79, it would not be good for me to need heart surgery other than visiting with Jesus sooner than expected.
If the money isn't there the government will just add more deficit spending to the budget.
What's another $trillion dollars in debt among friends.
This is a twisted interpretation of the ACA. Any insurance pool works the same way as the outline you presented: money is paid into a central "pool," which is then used to pay out claims as they come in.
It's the same for car insurance.It's the same for home insurance.It's the same for health insurance.
As most health insurance companies want to maximize their profits and pay out as little as possible, that's why you end up with situations where they'll refuse coverage, refuse payment for treatments, or deny even covering someone with a "preexisting" condition to begin with. These inequalities hurt the economy overall and are some of the issues that the ACA tackled to make the system fairer and more equitable for those involved.
Perhaps the methodology is flawed, but I would rather something be done then nothing at all, and as the ACA only tackles the insurance side of healthcare rather than the actual diagnostical/treatment side of healthcare (which is were the majority of costs come from), it is misleading to label it "socialised medicine."
As for your story from England, it's funny how every opponent of "socialised healthcare" has something like that, but can only give generalities rather than specifics. In the UK (as with Australia, and I'm sure Canada - but I don't know for sure) people still have the option to pay for private healthcare - through insurance - if they want, but will still have the ability to access healthcare without going bankrupt in the process. For every story such as the one you present, there are three, or four, or five similar stories in the US where people in desperate need of treatment are not able to access it either due to cost considerations, or lack of adequate coverage. That is just as much a travesty as in the case above.
Only here in the US are patients turfed out onto the streets halfway through their care if their ability to pay runs out - there's even a street in Los Angeles that has tens of patients who have their care terminated because of cost.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may not be the most perfect model in the world, but it is far better than the status quo that existed before it was passed.
Oh, and only the uneducated and simple people assume that it's "free" healthcare. It's still paid for, but insurance picks up more of the tab based on the premiums that are paid.
It's a distinction missing from many analyses of it, but those who think it's "free" are also the ones who would believe the moon is actually cheese if you told them so.
The sad thing is that we must pay the price for the stupidity of other people. Costa Rica is looking better and better all the time.
There's a flip side to this story that I think is important as well: When healthcare isn't a market system, people aren't as free (or aren't as incentivized) to choose less expensive procedures or less expensive care. Healthcare insurance and medical malpractice suits had already screwed up this side of the equation though--people going to the hospital will get the most expensive treatment, expensive tests, and expensive doctors since 1) hospitals don't want to risk liability and 2) insurance will pay for it. Thus, cost of care sky rockets.
@cmdr_keen - Would you like a name and number of the gentleman? His father died of colon cancer because they wouldn't operate. He was too old, they said.
This is honestly absurd. I live in Canada, and I have a few family members with chronic conditions that would have caused bankruptcy if we'd lived in the US. We don't worry about going to the hospital because we might come out with a bill we can't afford. I have many American friends that let illnesses go untreated because they can't afford to get them diagnosed or treated. When I'm sick, I see a doctor. And when I leave that doctor, I have a diagnosis, not a bill. I have lived in Canada for 24 years so I am positive I know more people living with socialized health care than you do, and I have never heard of anyone refused treatment because they were too old– that only happens in the US when you're too poor (or they treat you and then you spend the rest of your life paying it off instead).
Great post!!!
Nothing is free. With medicare and CHAMP VA and military fee service medical from being retired and from my husband being a disabled Nam Vet, we have learned preventitive home treatment.
Example-hubby is an insulin dependent diabetic so when we check his feet on a regular basis. He is prone to ingrown toe nails which are life threatening to a diabetic is not treated, so we begin soaking in epsen salts and using over the counter antibiotic creams as soon as it begins and we seldom need a drs appt to treat.
My husband has fronto temporal dementia and I have in home care help to help me keep him home, and we pay almost half of our income in co pay.So I am not sure who is getting medical help for free but it sure isn"t us.It is worth whatever it costs to be able to keep him home and i am grateful we can do that but I would sure like to know how these people get all of this free stuff.Exactly!
Socialized healthcare is the answer to a symptom and not getting at the problem. Cost is the problem. That is a symptom of a combination of things mostly related to greed. We're too far gone now to fix it though.
THANK YOU. Excellent explanation. Good post.
So you know you have to wait for a heart transplant and you can be denied, right? My husband and I had a hard choice to make...school or health insurance? Well we could have health insurance now (he has crappy insurance that hardly pays for anything) OR we could go to school now and both have good insurance later. My future or my future...hmm. England is a bad example because they do a poor job at it...trust me I almost became a resident. Compare England to Canada or another country and the results are quite a bit different. Keep in mind that people here in the US can be DENIED insurance or have it raised not because of something they chose to do but something they were born with. Example. I got a quote from a few places (not saying names...free market after all eh?) and I was either unable to get it or my premium shot up because I have asthma and eczema BOTH which are under control without the need of steroids. So that fat guy down the street gets medicare because he is disabled but me, an able person with my conditions under control can't get shit? Just a downside...really
@plursheep - I didn't say heart transplant in the post, but I know you have to wait. There is a list and they have to decide who gets the few live hearts they have.
AND lol. When I didn't have all of my issues under control, there were a couple of times my insurance didn't want to pay things out because "It wasn't an emergency." Yes I had this problem with Kaiser a lot. Can't breathe you say? Passed out? Pfft that isn't an emergency at all! Make an appointment or pay the $300 ER deductible!
@plursheep - I know insurance sucks. I have it, I pay out the wazoo for it, and it barely pays for anything.
@cmdr_keen - Frankly, I'd rather pay for my own health costs than to pay for insurance. No doubt, insurance is handy, but God only knows if I'll actually ever NEED it...or WHEN. I'd rather just spend and save my money wisely.
@NightCometh - That's a rather vague answer. How old was he? When did he first realize something was wrong and decided to see a doctor? Did he get in right away, and if not, how long did he have to wait? When he did see a doctor and colon cancer was diagnosed, what stage was it at? If he was stage IV when diagnosed, there is a 6% chance of a 5 year survival rate. If you don't have all the information/facts, you can't possibly make a judgment on whether or not they did the right thing.
@NightCometh - @Melissa___Dawn - Exactly. The biggest concern with operations, especially with the elderly, is that the anesthesia to be able to operate would/could kill them. In that instance either the patient could refuse the operation, or the anesthesiologist would advocate not going through the operation.
Then there's the location of the tumor: if it's too far wrapped around other vital organs, or is too close to a major blood vessel, then an operation wouldn't be an effective option.
You also mention that the NHS wouldn't pay for treatment, and I know for a fact that private healthcare is available in the UK: so why not go private? If it comes down to cost, how is that any different to the US system? At least in the UK there's the option and possibility of a "cheaper" option, but unless there are compelling factors (such as I listed above, and which Melissa_Dawn highlights as well) stating otherwise, treatment may still be possible.
This is also the person's father speaking about this, who may still be upset at his father's passing. It may have been that the father decided that it was his time, and that treatment - which has no guarantee of success - would not be worth it to him, personally, so decided against it.
Your anecdotal story is not evidence nor proof that a health insurance scheme open to all and is at least in part funded by all taxpayers cannot work, and has "death panels" (what you're effectively saying) as part of the process. How is this any different to the current free market health insurance companies which make similar decisions about who to cover, or not, based on cost considerations?
Health insurance reform is a step in the right direction, but the two other key areas that need to be tackled, are costs - bringing them down (and something the ACA attempts to help with), and tort reform to reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits that are bought against medical practitioners from grieving families looking for someone to blame for a loved one's passing. Until these two areas are also addressed, costs will keep spiraling up, and insurance will remain expensive for all of us, regardless of medical history, affordability, or choice.
@zoedark - My step-grandmother is Canadian. She chooses to use doctors and get medications and surgery here, even though she has to pay for them here and she wouldn't in Canada. When they aren't in the States, she has her drugs shipped to my parents' house so that they can send them to her. Why do you think she does that?
Damn, don't know anything about socialised healthcare, do you? I'm CANADIAN, so don't even start with me.
"It's the same for car insurance.It's the same for home insurance.It's the same for health insurance."
@cmdr_keen - EXACTLY correct. I don't understand why Americans cannot see this. The ONLY DIFFERENCE between my 'socialised' healthcare, and their private healthcare would be the middleman. Americans pay an insurance company, whereas I pay my government. There is one MAJOR difference. Private insurance companies may refuse to pay. It is ILLEGAL here to refuse.
We are already seeing the effects of the new healthcare law. Our insurers are jacking up their costs and passing it onto us. So, instead of our company paying for a typical PPO 100% for our employees, which we have done for years, we now have a choice. They can choose the same plan they've got now, but they will have to contribute to the payment, or they can go with a high deductible plan. We aren't even a large company.
People think that the cost is insignificant to employers, but it isn't. A very large corporation might be able to absorb the cost, but those are the very people who are in bed with the government. Small employers will have to either lay people off or reduce their pay in order to comply with a law that amounts to a significant raise for employees. This will mostly hurt tradespeople and unskilled laborers. You know. The common man.