For Anyone Who Still Wants Obamacare

[V65Magnafan]

THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6879553.ece

[US Militiaman]

I think you're missing the point...it'll be different here...

It won't be like the UK, Germany, Norway, Canada, or Switzerland...their systems are unsustainable, but it'll be different here...

The fact that noone else has been able to make it sustainable should definitely not detract from our desire to have the same thing...and when it fails eventually, I have no doubt the history books will have a way of blaming it on us...

[V65Magnafan]

Hey, I'm an American living in Canada.

The fact that I had to wait five months to see an ENT specialist shouldn't deter you from Obamacare. And the fact that an acquaintance of mine died while on a waiting list shouldn't deter you.

Nor should the fact that Canada's cancer death rate is quite a bit higher than that in The U.S. because the largest province, Ontario, won't fund the latest cancer drugs.

Nor should the fact that Canada has far fewer MRI machines per capita than The U.S.

Or the fact that many people I know go for advanced treatment--or any major treatment--in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit.

Frankly, I don't know what Canadians will do when the American system ends up like the Canadian system.

If your life is in danger, the medical care is first rate. Otherwise....

[Morel42]

I think you're missing the point...it'll be different here...

It won't be like the UK, Germany, Norway, Canada, or Switzerland...their systems are unsustainable, but it'll be different here...

The fact that noone else has been able to make it sustainable should definitely not detract from our desire to have the same thing...and when it fails eventually, I have no doubt the history books will have a way of blaming it on us...

Actually most of those countries listed have different systems themselves. The UK is an example of what most people call "Socialized Medicine", Canada is close but not as much, Switzerland's is a balance of both free market and a public option..

Not to mention Switzerland can sustain almost anything really because of their insane alien like society. 99% Literacy, lowest crime rates, insane amount of wealth, no wars, etc etc..

If the US didn't have to spend more then the entire world together on Defense, we could afford some other stuff, but that's another thread all together..

[Morel42]

Hey, I'm an American living in Canada.

The fact that I had to wait five months to see an ENT specialist shouldn't deter you from Obamacare. And the fact that an acquaintance of mine died while on a waiting list shouldn't deter you.

Nor should the fact that Canada's cancer death rate is quite a bit higher than that in The U.S. because the largest province, Ontario, won't fund the latest cancer drugs.

Nor should the fact that Canada has far fewer MRI machines per capita than The U.S.

Or the fact that many people I know go for advanced treatment--or any major treatment--in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit.

Frankly, I don't know what Canadians will do when the American system ends up like the Canadian system.

If your life is in danger, the medical care is first rate. Otherwise....

Well, it's a huge catch 22..

If you have a system based on financial gain, medical researchers invest money in newer technologies, drugs and such.. However they tend to make everything more expensive and less accessible.

If you have a system that makes it accessible to everyone, and totally removes the financial aspect (the UK is the most guilty of this) you have medical care for everyone, but it's not going to shatter any records in new drugs and medical treatments.

Money drives progress, but progress sometimes destroys those who can't keep up, and it's extremely vulnerable to corruption.

Like I've said before. Every system has one fatal flaw in it... Human Beings..

[adymond]

If you have a system based on financial gain, medical researchers invest money in newer technologies, drugs and such.. However they tend to make everything more expensive and less accessible.

I call bullshit on the fact that innovation drives up the cost. The market should dictate the cost, but when you have artifical cost controls put in place, a consumer completely removed from the negotiation of the cost, a consumer who generally doesn't even know what the cost is until the burden is placed squarely upon their shoulders, and then have the facilities who are having price controls forced upon them trying to game the system so they can try to make a profit so they can reinvest in their company (artifically inflating the charges in an effort to increase the "negotiated" reimbursment schedules), as well as idiotic regulations that will not allow price negotiating on an individual basis until AFTER the charges are incurred, you have services becoming more expensive and less accessible.

[velkly]

I call bullshit on the fact that innovation drives up the cost. The market should dictate the cost

Have to agree with this. Innovation leads to REDUCED costs and improved products. If you want to sell a product, you must price it according to the value the consumer places upon it. Yes businesses want to get as much money as they can from a product, everyone does. Why do you think Ebay and craigslist even exist?

Perform a simple Google search on "innovation" and "cost" and try to find where it increases rather than reduces costs.

[Last Standing]

It won't be like the UK, Germany, Norway, Canada, or Switzerland...their systems are unsustainable, but it'll be different here...

The fact that noone else has been able to make it sustainable should definitely not detract from our desire to have the same thing...and when it fails eventually, I have no doubt the history books will have a way of blaming it on us...

Just for some knowledge Cuba has a system that works and is sustainable. Wonder how they do that.

[CG1492]

I call bullshit on the fact that innovation drives up the cost. The market should dictate the cost, but when you have artifical cost controls put in place, a consumer completely removed from the negotiation of the cost, a consumer who generally doesn't even know what the cost is until the burden is placed squarely upon their shoulders, and then have the facilities who are having price controls forced upon them trying to game the system so they can try to make a profit so they can reinvest in their company (artifically inflating the charges in an effort to increase the "negotiated" reimbursment schedules), as well as idiotic regulations that will not allow price negotiating on an individual basis until AFTER the charges are incurred, you have services becoming more expensive and less accessible.

Innovation always drives up cost due to the innovator wanting to recoup the costs of r+d and what not. Then after time that technology drops in cost, and the circle continues on.

[Morel42]

I call bullshit on the fact that innovation drives up the cost. The market should dictate the cost, but when you have artifical cost controls put in place, a consumer completely removed from the negotiation of the cost, a consumer who generally doesn't even know what the cost is until the burden is placed squarely upon their shoulders, and then have the facilities who are having price controls forced upon them trying to game the system so they can try to make a profit so they can reinvest in their company (artifically inflating the charges in an effort to increase the "negotiated" reimbursment schedules), as well as idiotic regulations that will not allow price negotiating on an individual basis until AFTER the charges are incurred, you have services becoming more expensive and less accessible.

I was simply talking about that companies must make up the money they have invested into a drug..

The drug companies aren't quite as vulnerable to "Market Forces" as other areas you'll have to admit.. You need a drug, you need it.. There really isn't comparison shopping on that one single drug that will keep you alive..

The Free market system works for a corporation when someone can say NO to their product and go someplace else.. That's the key mechnism to the whole thing.. You have to have something to compensate for that issue.

Applying common market forces to some businesses is fundamentally flawed, creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that, if left unchecked, might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those societies who refused the compensate, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster to their own welfare..

/matrix