ExRx.net

Police and public infrastructure is the purpose of government. You can't compare those to socialized health insurance.

Yes the problem is the drug companies try to sell drugs for less in other countries because they don't think those countries have the money/will to pay the true cost. We're basically subsidizing other countries, such as Canada. The ban should be lifted - so says Cato - http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-521es.html

Some random websites with unknown credibility claim 45,000 deaths per year from lack of insurance, and 440,000 deaths per year from cigarettes. Sounds plausible, I suppose. Note the second figure has an extra zero at the end. If you're going to spend trillions of dollars and bankrupt half the planet, shouldn't you at least do it with the mother of all anti-smoking campaigns to try to save the 440,000, instead of only trying to save the 45,000 with socialized health insurance?

Health insurance is already socialism, plus billions and billions in profits. I see no reason not to subtract the profits. This gives us WAY lower overhead. Take medicare for example. It has a 2% overhead, where as insurance companies are over 30%. Insurance companies also cherry pick, and cut you off when you start to use to much.

If people are treated in the emergency room even if they almost certainly can't pay for it, how is it that health insurance can't be compared to infrastructure?

Anti-smoking campaigns are not effective for current smokers. As everyone is aware of the dangers of smoking, those who still choose to smoke, will do so no matter what you say. So that doesn't compare to health insurance.

I'm confused - you think that the current free market system that allows you or your employer to choose to buy insurance to pay for medicine/doctors in the event of illness is socialism?

I don't know where that number came from, but there's no way Medicare "overhead" is 2%. Keep in mind the enormous cost to business just to ensure they're complying with all the complexities of IRS law, and the cost to individuals to file.

If the goal is to save lives, but think that anti-smoking campaigns won't work, then we should spend the trillions on R&D for something that really will help them quit.

Point 1. It is socialism by definition. Everyone pays in and gets according to need.The money is pooled. That way those who are healthy can offset the costs for those who aren't. That is the essence of socialism.

Point 2. The overhead is low because it is non-profit. Insurance companies have high overhead because of their profit margins. It's that simple.

Point 3. I mostly agree. We shouldn't throw money at it just for the sake of it. We should research ways to help people quit though. There is actually a book that is very effective. I know 3 different smokers who quit very easily with it's program. It uses cognitive dissonance to kill your desire to smoke.

By the way, universal health care seems to work well in the states that currently have it.

Ok, I see what you're getting at, but you're missing a key part of the definition - socialism can't be voluntary or opt-in. It's only socialism if it's imposed on you by the government.

If insurance companies are so amazingly profitable, then buy stock in them and collect dividends from their profits. The government will always find a way to be more bureaucratic and have higher overhead than any successful private institution

I'd rather see private charity at work here. That's what most hospitals were originally - that's why they're all named after churches and saints.

Charity is better in every way than socialism. With charity, the person giving feels wonderful for helping out his fellow man with a cause he believes in, and the person receiving the gift is grateful. With socialism, the person being robbed by the government is annoyed, and the person the government hands the money over to just feels entitled and wonders why they don't get even more.

(If you're going to do socialized health care, at least doing it at the state level is Constitutional, and let's states try different things to see what works. That's a much better approach.)

That whole post makes no sense. First point, the government mandate is irrelevant to the analogy, so that's a red herring. Your next sentence is a baseless assertion that government is always inefficient. It is also a generalization.

Next sentence is a red herring as we are not talking about charities.

Next you are comparing charity and socialism. I was not talking about charity. I was also not advocating socialism. Yet another red herring.

Your final point is rather strange too. Nobody is talking about socializing medicine.

Like I said before. The current system of the emergency medical care of the poor being passed onto us in higher costs is not sustainable. There are 2 sustainable choices. Pool our money so everyone has health coverage, or let people die. If you think this is a false dichotomy, please tell me another sustainable option.

You stated that the private health insurance market was socialism, I was just explaining why it didn't fit with the traditional definition.

Government inefficiency may be a generalization, but it's generally a fact. :)

And yes charity is a potential solution to the problem of uninsured people. We need more free clinics so that emergency rooms are not full of uninsured with the sniffles.

If you really want costs to go down though, you need people to be healthier and less reliant on medicine. I was trying to find research regarding health insurance plans and stumbled on this interesting story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =113549864 - three cheers for them - we need more of that (although I'm not a huge fan of B.M.I., it's something anyway).

If more people actually had to shop for their own health insurance, rather than getting it "free" from employers we'd see more incentive plans like that. That's the real solution.

No I did not say the insurance market was socialism. A market is capitalist by definition. I said insurance itself. The concept of insurance is socialist in nature as I explained before.

No, it's not always a fact.

You can't magically get an increase in charitable donations. So charity doing any more than it does right now is not realistic.

I agree with your next point. That is why we need coverage for everyone. That way they can get preventative care. That way, the taxes I pay for them will be less than the hidden tax I'm paying now.

I can partially agree with the last point. Affordable insurance options that people can choose from is part of the health care bill. You can't take people's employer based coverage away though. That will piss off almost everyone regardless of political views.

So I think we are left with the same 2 choices.

Saying insurance is socialistic is ridiculous. It fails to meet key criteria for what the word socialist means.

It may not be that 100% of government bureaucracies are more wasteful than businesses, but any business that's as poorly run as the government is won't last long.

The two choices of socializing health insurance or people dieing aren't a real choice. Socializing health care will just lead to rationing and possibly more people dieing sooner than they do now.

Also, "preventative care" is largely a red herring. Ie, we don't need "preventative care" for diabetes and fat-induced stroke/heart disease - we need better education on the dangers of poor lifestyle choices. And we need better incentives for being healthy.

I'd rather my employer just give me the extra money and I'll buy health insurance. What on earth is so special about health insurance? My employer doesn't directly buy my groceries. It makes no sense.

What are both your views on the NHS in the UK for healthcare? People are always quick to complain about it but I think they take it for granted way too much, they don't know how lucky they are and if they were bothered that much there's always the option to go private.

We need protection against criminals, and we have reasonably efficient, reasonably well-run government agencies to do that for us, and we cheerfully (well, sort of) pay taxes to keep it going.

We need fire protection as well, and we have reasonably efficient, reasonably well-run government agencies to provide that service.

Why can't we conceive of government-run agencies to provide health care, and why can't we imagine that they might be reasonably well-run as well?

We don't have a bunch of competing commercial law enforcement agencies vying for our law enforcement dollar.

Other countries, in fact most developed countries have health-care systems that are of equal or superior quality to that in the US, available universally to all citizens, and at a significantly lower cost than ours. Why can't we do the same? I don't know.

Jungledoc, I see Canada as an example of good healthcare (: not greath though.

Our government seems to do a pretty good job at it, there are some times when waiting is a factor, actually someone died while waiting, which is horrible but I can't complain. I see that as the hospital's fault not the government's.

Also I think healthcare is so expensive in the US because, the doctors are paid so much. And the drug companies like to make lots of money. I'm sure if doctors in the US were paid lower wages more people could afford healthcare. There's a lot more to it than that but, I can't explaine all it.

You are continuing to make the same fallacious arguments you did before. I have already addressed these points.

You apparently only know the Fox news definition of socialism. I'm talking about reality.

Another baseless assertion.

You are claiming a false dichotomy without stating another option. Then a baseless assertion, where there is actually evidence to the contrary. Not to mention the whole thing is a straw man, as I am not talking about socializing health care.

No, we need preventative care. You are supposed to get check ups every so often to catch things before they become a big expensive problem. When you get older, you need additional procedures. Education is only part of it.

Wow that is a stunning display of ignorance. It is because your employer can get a volume discount. So it is cheaper to give insurance as a benefit than to give the money needed to buy it on your own. At least with our current system anyway.

If all you are going to do is ignore my points and spout off logical fallacies, I see no reason to continue discussing it.

I think it is a good thing. There are better systems out there, such as in France. However it is a good system and I have heard stories from people who were very glad to have it. I have seen plenty of British people defending NHS in forums when people attack it. It ranks better then US health care, but so do a lot of countries.

Yeah. Lots of countries.