lealdragon

See post #5 in the 'Giving Thanks' thread:

Here's What I'm Thankful For

kluge

I find it interesting that people posting on this subject studiously avoid the most basic - and defining - truth of our health care system: We have universal health care. We just do an incredibly inefficient job of delivering it. No one will be denied care just because they have no insurance and no money. So if you let companies or individuals "select out" the high risk individuals, that just pushes them onto somebody else's bill - eventually, some level of government. And the process of playing a financial zero sum game with a universal health care system like ours ensures that a tremendous amount of wasted time, energy, and money is spent on the musical chairs game of "who gets stuck with the bill."

Don't like "ambulance chasing lawyers"? Guess what - with single payer there's no point to the chase. I'm rarely directly involved in injury cases, but I have gotten a view into the behind the scenes fighting over which insurance company has to pay a particular medical bill. Talk about a lawyer's full employment act!

Not having a single payer system of some type warps our society in more ways than you guys can imagine. The hidden and unanticipated costs of funding medical care through the patchwork of overlapping, mutually exclusive, and otherwise byzantine systems of reimbursement for medical care is a huge drag on our nation's pocketbook and psyche. If there weren't some huge corporations making huge sums of money of the status quo we'd have fixed this travesty long ago.

menloparkmom

"We have universal health care. "
Oh really? Explain that to the 40 million who DON'T have health insurance because they can't afford .

UriA702

we do have programs for those who do earn a sufficient amount of money to purchase their own. It is others choice to prioritize other things over health care. Many people that don't have health care don't because they feel it is unnecessary.

kluge

Yeah - our delivery of health care to those 40 Million is really inefficient and expensive - but it's delivered anyway. Break your leg - go to the ER at the county Hospital. Chronic disease? - ignore it until you're hospitalized. But you will be hospitalized. We don't just leave people to die of curable diseases. We may bankrupt them first (or try to) but they get treated, even if every last penny has already been squeezed out of them.

Yeah - the health care is universal. It's just poorly delivered, in the most expensive manner possible.

Bay

I agree with you, Kluge. All you need to do is take note of the fact that the number of American residents dying in the streets is few to none to know that we do, in fact, take care of every American. From a global perspective, it is impressive, but it IS incredibly inefficient. As a society we have decided that free choice is more important that equality of care for everyone. Perhaps this will change in the near future.