Health Care Thread

Why would a single payer system necessarily preclude a market for more niche private sector specialists or experimental procedures? Seems like every other week I hear about some athlete flying to Europe for some niche treatment.

Hoss_sl said:

Wasn't even talking about the waiting lists this time. I was referring more to innovative treatments which are encouraged in our system and generally discouraged in single payer systems.

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Again, please cite something that bears this out. Last I checked, there's plenty of medical research in to innovative treatments in our health care system. The University of Alberta is a world leader in diabetes research, for example, amongst many other things:University of Alberta: Diabetes/Islet Transplantation/Transplantation

Plenty of fancy shit comes out of Europe as well, not to mention Japan, Australia, and NZ.

Synj_sl said:

From a quote in the NYT: "Indeed, according to the research firm the Standish Group, 94 percent of large federal information technology projects over the past 10 years were unsuccessful - more than half were delayed, over budget, or didn't meet user expectations, and 41.4 percent failed completely. "

And this:

"The government has to follow a code called the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which is more than 1,800 pages of legalese that all but ensure that the companies that win government contracts, like the ones put out to build HealthCare.gov, are those that can navigate the regulations best, but not necessarily do the best job."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/op...flop.html?_r=0

I'm not even blaming Obama for this, I think corruption and ineptitude and complexity (bureaucracy) abound throughout almost every aspect of government. I think it's further compounded by a lack of profit motive and consequence hence the laziness.

If you think the government is capable fine. I don't. In the face of so many failures by our government, I don't get why it's so hard to understand why I feel this way, even if you don't agree with me.

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We have some stupid rules and regulations that hinder us, lets throw out the baby with the bath water! We understand why you feel this way, we just disagree with your jump to government is incapable because that is a stupid fucking leap.

Serious question Synj, why does everything but government get a pass with you? You point out flaws with government and throw your hands up and point to how its incapable of doing anything right (lets ignore the fact that government does shit right all the time, or at least well enough that if these government ran programs were to vanish even you would be upset) what is the solution? I can point flaws in everything you can point to as an example, everything and none of it has anything to do with government or capitalism but the source of the problem resides directly in our species itself. It's entirely possible that you just haven't bothered to piss and moan about other things than government and if so fine, but you need to realize you are wrong and why.

You find a problem in government such as mentioned previously by you and you go through and fix it, just like you when you find a problem with your business, a school or any other million different examples. Unless you plan on removing humans from the equation errors in every system are going to pop up, now if we used your same logic to not allow government to do anything because it fucks up, well why don't we just all kill ourselves because we are incapable of not fucking up.

Synj_sl said:

I'm not even blaming Obama for this, I think corruption and ineptitude and complexity (bureaucracy) abound throughout almost every aspect of government. I think it's further compounded by a lack of profit motive and consequence hence the laziness.

If you think the government is capable fine. I don't. In the face of so many failures by our government, I don't get why it's so hard to understand why I feel this way, even if you don't agree with me.

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I think corruption, ineptitude, and complexity permeates every aspect of private healthcare. I think it's further compounded by a focus on profit motive, hence the greediness.

I just had an $84,000 appendectomy six months ago. I'm a full-time student that couldn't afford health insurance. I've been able to pay off the surgeon, pathologist, ER doc, and radiologist, but I'm afraid that I can't keep up with the large payments that the anesthesiologist and hospital are demanding so those two bills are already in collections and everyone elses premiums will be going up as a result. My credit is now going to be totally fucked for the next seven years. Great. Working as intended?

Also, my lack of insurance caused me to try and tough it out an extra day instead of immediately going to the ER. That delay caused my appendix to rupture and consequently I stayed an extra 4 days in the hospital, costing much more money that will be passed on to the consumer. Privatization yo!

Synj_sl said:

I'm sorry about your surgery, glad you got it taken care of. Also sorry if your credit gets screwed, that sucks. I don't see how me criticizing the government equates to: "I don't think there's a problem with health insurance."

I do think there was and is a problem, I just don't believe that government is the solution. Again, sorry about what's going on with your situation.

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Thanks, I appreciate that. But what is the solution? If you leave it up to the states and live in a deeply red state like I do, private corporations are allowed to run roughshod over the citizenry with little or no oversight, and people in the margins like myself are left out in the cold. Bootstraps are great and shit, but I couldn't exactly cut out my own appendix.

TheBeagle_sl said:

Bootstraps are great and shit, but I couldn't exactly cut out my own appendix.

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Don't be a pussy.This guy did it.

B-B-B-B-Booooooooooooootstraps!

Synj_sl said:

I don't mean to sound dense but I don't know the solution. I still think that legal reform needs to happen so that clinicians can worry more about patient care and less about covering their asses. That was addressed earlier in this thread by Vaclav and there seems to be some evidence that that isn't the solution. But who knows?

As bad as shit is in the private sector, at least you got fixed and there are worse things than bad credit, small consolation I know and I'm not minimizing what you've been through. I just fear that it will be a hell of a lot worse if the Federal government is the one that dictates coverage, care, slippery slope, etc.

The Fed doesn't exactly have a great track record, so it's not like I'm just being paranoid here.

TLDR: I don't know what the answer is, but I'm pretty certain the Federal government ain't it.

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My thoughts are that Medicaid should be expanded to give basic coverage to every single citizen of the U.S. while retaining the private insurance market for people that want cadillac coverage or doctors that are outside of Medicaid. Everyone gets what they want. The private market will stabilize since they will no longer be footing the bill for the uninsured and single payer will keep people from going bankrupt when they get sick.

TheBeagle_sl said:

My thoughts are that Medicaid should be expanded to give basic coverage to every single citizen of the U.S. while retaining the private insurance market for people that want cadillac coverage or doctors that are outside of Medicaid. Everyone gets what they want. The private market will stabilize since they will no longer be footing the bill for the uninsured and single payer will keep people from going bankrupt when they get sick.

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Yeah, a public-private system makes a lot of sense. It's too bad DC has no fucking sense whatsoever.