(USA) A Conservative Case for Universal Health Coverage

[Olivaero]

Competition wont reduce the cost of health care, when your having a heart attack your in no position to make a rational judgement about which hospital offers the best care for the most reasonable price. You need the closest care and that is the one you'll be given.

... don't you know how the health insurance system works?

Oh you can find what you consider a reasonable premium to pay but then the negotiation is no longer between the consumer and the healthcare companies it's then between the insurer and the healthcare providers the insurers which may not always have your bets interests at heart. Let me put it this way when some one needs medical care, they need to go to the nearest doctor possible right? so they're taken to the nearest doctor possible and given what ever service they need in this situation is the isurance company going to be shopping around for which hospital to put you in? No. you go to the one which is closest and the one that you need. The demand is inelastic so competition doesn't work as well. In other markets if if the price of ham goes up then people switch to beef if the price of the medical care they need goes up...what do they switch to?

[Kelinfort]

I throw my lot with the Japanese system. Most efficient, cost effective, and a mixture of public and private provision. It's a pretty good idea for the US.

[Celritannia]

I throw my lot with the Japanese system. Most efficient, cost effective, and a mixture of public and private provision. It's a pretty good idea for the US.

Same as the Netherlands system as well.

[Rio Cana]

Unfortunately our current two-party system doesn't care about people's health or health care. We have the stupid old system (you need insurance, you can't afford insurance) or stupid Obamacare (you need insurance, you can't afford insurance, you are forced to buy insurance).

You forgot the US territories where it generally does not exist. Lets take for example the US largest territory which is Puerto Rico. There, you either get private insurance or Medicaid. But Medicaid requires you to pass an income test which includes bank account. Thus, if you are unemployed but have, this is important, some money in the bank then you do not qualify for medicaid. Seems you cannot have more then $3000 in the bank depending on how many in the family. So they tell you to check the State private insurance exchange which is not cheap. So that unemployed person ends up having no insurance. In the US, they made sure when it came to Medicaid that the income test was dropped. But not in the territories.

[Vazdaria]

I throw my lot with the Japanese system. Most efficient, cost effective, and a mixture of public and private provision. It's a pretty good idea for the US.

30-70 is not good at all.

[Vazdaria]

I throw my lot with the Japanese system. Most efficient, cost effective, and a mixture of public and private provision. It's a pretty good idea for the US.

Same as the Netherlands system as well.

This system is horrible.

[Kelinfort]

I throw my lot with the Japanese system. Most efficient, cost effective, and a mixture of public and private provision. It's a pretty good idea for the US.

30-70 is not good at all.

Why not? Do you have any empirical evidence to oppose this?

[Novus America]

What's wrong with free private healthcare through a comprehensive voucher system? That way we have competition AND affordability, not one or the other.

This, one hundred times this. Why not have the best of both worlds? Guaranteed care, but the ability to choose. Plus this is the only system that would work well in the Federal US, because the best health care system for Texas is not necessarily the best one for Vermont. All EU states have some form of subsidized care, but not the same system. Nobody wants an EU wide healthcare system. If a state (Vermont is trying) wanted to have a Canada like single payer system it could, and the people enrolled in the system would have their vouchers applied to the system. If a state like Texas wanted to rely on private companies it could do so as well.

Plus I think conservatives and liberals a like can get behind this, there is really no down side.

[Imyoji]

I throw my lot with the Japanese, Singaporean, or Dutch systems of healthcare. For all three of them work well in their intended economical conditions, but all three can be implemented in the US without much difficulty other than violent objection of 'eat the poor' Malthusian-social darwinistic Republicans.

Healthcare is a right, and it is ethically and morally correct to say that healthcare is deserved by all members of society. To say otherwise is selfish and honestly disgusting.

And OP is a Christian-Democrat/Pragmatic centrist, really.

[Novus America]

How was it unregulated, and how did you regulate it?


Good thing I didn't root in favour of just the market system, then, no?

It was unregulated as in it was a new industry that we didn't know what kind of regulations we had to pass.

We've been having to pass legislation from insurers not being able to deny you insurance due to pre-existing conditions to them honoring their insurance contract, which didn't happen before.

Yes, but I don't think keeping the industry private is a good idea. Keeping it privatized is precisely why we're in the hole we're in. Having a nationalized insurance industry would be a step forward instead of leaving it to run with people who have all shown to be fuckups. You can't say with honesty that our current system in the U.S. isn't a big fuckup.

Um, nationalized would leave it run by the Federal government. The Federal government has proven to be a big fuckup. Did you not read the news about the VA crisis?

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

And OP is a Christian-Democrat/Pragmatic centrist, really.

Also, socially reactionary.

[Olivaero]

It was unregulated as in it was a new industry that we didn't know what kind of regulations we had to pass.

We've been having to pass legislation from insurers not being able to deny you insurance due to pre-existing conditions to them honoring their insurance contract, which didn't happen before.

Yes, but I don't think keeping the industry private is a good idea. Keeping it privatized is precisely why we're in the hole we're in. Having a nationalized insurance industry would be a step forward instead of leaving it to run with people who have all shown to be fuckups. You can't say with honesty that our current system in the U.S. isn't a big fuckup.

Um, nationalized would leave it run by the Federal government. The Federal government has proven to be a big fuckup. Did you not read the news about the VA crisis?

I was under the impression Medicare was a very efficient government run program in the US.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Um, nationalized would leave it run by the Federal government. The Federal government has proven to be a big fuckup. Did you not read the news about the VA crisis?

I did, and?

Most people seem not to realize that either way we're fucked, at least nationalizing it would provide everyone with insurance and then we can concentrate on improving the shit out of a single system and not the 500,000 systems we have now.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I was under the impression Medicare was a very efficient government run program in the US.

The thing with Medicare is that it is a Federal program with private companies, which is a fucked up mess to deal with if something goes wrong.

Currently Medicare is combining around 30 private insurer's programs across the United States.

[Olivaero]

I was under the impression Medicare was a very efficient government run program in the US.

The thing with Medicare is that it is a Federal program with private companies, which is a fucked up mess to deal with if something goes wrong.

Currently Medicare is combining around 30 private insurer's programs across the United States.

It's not ideal but it's a damn sight better than an individual having to deal with insurers directly.

[Novus America]

Why can't the United States' government just decrease their Defense Budget massively, establish a system of Universal Healthcare, and relocate that spending towards the new healthcare system? Privatized healthcare is horridly inefficient.

Sure, why not? Brilliant idea!

Let ISIS have Iraq and Syria! Screw those religious minorities who will be murdered and turned into sex slaves.
Let the Taliban have Afghanistan! Screw the Afghan people, they deserve to die. And 1911 was not so bad, only a few thousand people died.
Fire those SEALS who killed Osama, make them homeless veterans.
If the US has to fight another war, lets just surrender! The Holocaust was not so bad, why did we waste money fighting to stop it?
Next time Haiti or Indonesia needs help, screw them too! They can die, who needs a Navy to provide emergency humanitarian response?
Who needs the straight of Hormuz, let it be closed so the global economy can collapse, no big deal.

GPS! Who needs than sh*t anyways? We can use paper maps! Forget that shipping and trucking fleets need it, delivering consumer goods is not important, empty grocery store shelves are awesome. I like starving...
Oh but the paper charts used by ships are made by the military too. And the canals and channels they use are maintained by the military. And the navigation aids... Oh well the channels can silt up and the ships can crash, because as we said before starving is awesome!

Oh an those dams maintained by the Army Corps of engineers, let them collapse, it is not like we need water and electricity, and people can drown.
Screw the levees, last time we got the military over extended and underfunded, only a few thousand died in Katrina. New Orleans can drown.

And hurricane Sandy, who needs emergency response offered by the military? And those lost at sea? They can drown too.

Lets create thousands more homeless vets! We do not have nearly enough!

Oh and this internet thing, well it was created with military funding, screw the internet too! Jet engines, rockets, navigation satellites, who needs that junk military funding developed?

/Sarcasm.

Why do we have to destroy the military to have health care? Do you have any idea how much your daily life relies on the military? (Ever heard of GPS?).

Sorry if this is angry, but this makes me furious. When I was on active duty I had fellow sailors working 80 hour weeks, who could not provide for their families. Have you every worked an 80 hour week, getting paid at a poverty rate, getting shot at? Try it some time, then let me know what you think about how much you like it. Where were you when we were in Haiti on extended deployment? Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Soldiers give their lives for your benefit, and are being treated and paid like crap. You want to repay them by throwing them out on the street?

The military is at a breaking point, and military spending has fallen to a historically very low percent of GDP. With military spending at a historic low, with soldiers going on food stamps, with the military cutting critical missions, do you really want to cut more? And what would you cut? GPS? Hurricane response? Dam and levee maintenance?

[Conscentia]

Going back to 1776, the entire American Revolution started because of taxes.

Britain lowered it's tax on tea, undercutting American smugglers - that provoked them to tip British tea into the sea in protest.

The truth is - regular colonists did not carry out The Boston Tea Party. It was not the man on the street. Not Joe the Colonist. Quite the opposite. There were those in Boston and elsewhere throughout the colonies who were against cheap tea. No, The Boston Tea Party wasn't organized by oppressed and over-taxed, unrepresented colonists. Instead The Boston Tea Party was a special interest political action organized and led by those most hurt by the British Tax Act of 1773 - tea smugglers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-g ... 61919.html

Your nation's myth of rebelling against excessive taxation is a lie.

[Novus America]

Um, nationalized would leave it run by the Federal government. The Federal government has proven to be a big fuckup. Did you not read the news about the VA crisis?

I did, and?

Most people seem not to realize that either way we're fucked, at least nationalizing it would provide everyone with insurance and then we can concentrate on improving the shit out of a single system and not the 500,000 systems we have now.

Why not have a voucher system though? It provides everyone with benefits, without a VA like government fiasco. We are not screwed either way with a voucher system. We do not need a false dichotomy. A fully government system sucks, a fully private system sucks, but we can have a happy medium. And if you really want government provided care you can move to Vermont even with a voucher system. Even in Canada and Sweden, the health care system is managed at a provincial level, not by the central government. The US is more like the EU in size and complexity, a one size fits all system would never work here.

[Olivaero]

Why can't the United States' government just decrease their Defense Budget massively, establish a system of Universal Healthcare, and relocate that spending towards the new healthcare system? Privatized healthcare is horridly inefficient.

Sure, why not? Brilliant idea!

Let ISIS have Iraq and Syria! Screw those religious minorities who will be murdered and turned into sex slaves.
Let the Taliban have Afghanistan! Screw the Afghan people, they deserve to die. And 1911 was not so bad, only a few thousand people died.
Fire those SEALS who killed Osama, make them homeless veterans.
If the US has to fight another war, lets just surrender! The Holocaust was not so bad, why did we waste money fighting to stop it?
Next time Haiti or Indonesia needs help, screw them too! They can die, who needs a Navy to provide emergency humanitarian response?
Who needs the straight of Hormuz, let it be closed so the global economy can collapse, no big deal.

GPS! Who needs than sh*t anyways? We can use paper maps! Forget that shipping and trucking fleets need it, delivering consumer goods is not important, empty grocery store shelves are awesome. I like starving...
Oh but the paper charts used by ships are made by the military too. And the canals and channels they use are maintained by the military. And the navigation aids... Oh well the channels can silt up and the ships can crash, because as we said before starving is awesome!

Oh an those dams maintained by the Army Corps of engineers, let them collapse, it is not like we need water and electricity, and people can drown.
Screw the levees, last time we got the military over extended and underfunded, only a few thousand died in Katrina. New Orleans can drown.

And hurricane Sandy, who needs emergency response offered by the military? And those lost at sea? They can drown too.

Lets create thousands more homeless vets! We do not have nearly enough!

Oh and this internet thing, well it was created with military funding, screw the internet too! Jet engines, rockets, navigation satellites, who needs that junk military funding developed?

/Sarcasm.

Why do we have to destroy the military to have health care? Do you have any idea how much your daily life relies on the military? (Ever heard of GPS?).

Sorry if this is angry, but this makes me furious. When I was on active duty I had fellow sailors working 80 hour weeks, who could not provide for their families. Have you every worked an 80 hour week, getting paid at a poverty rate, getting shot at? Try it some time, then let me know what you think about how much you like it. Where were you when we were in Haiti on extended deployment? Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Soldiers give their lives for your benefit, and are being treated and paid like crap. You want to repay them by throwing them out on the street?

The military is at a breaking point, and military spending has fallen to a historically very low percent of GDP. With military spending at a historic low, with soldiers going on food stamps, with the military cutting critical missions, do you really want to cut more? And what would you cut? GPS? Hurricane response? Dam and levee maintenance?

Plenty of nations have a decent military without spending the excessive amount of money the US does. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS India spends a full 1.2 percent less than the US does and they have a hostile nuclear power next door! Korea spends a percentage point less and they are technically at war with a nuclear power!

[Novus America]

Sure, why not? Brilliant idea!

Let ISIS have Iraq and Syria! Screw those religious minorities who will be murdered and turned into sex slaves.
Let the Taliban have Afghanistan! Screw the Afghan people, they deserve to die. And 1911 was not so bad, only a few thousand people died.
Fire those SEALS who killed Osama, make them homeless veterans.
If the US has to fight another war, lets just surrender! The Holocaust was not so bad, why did we waste money fighting to stop it?
Next time Haiti or Indonesia needs help, screw them too! They can die, who needs a Navy to provide emergency humanitarian response?
Who needs the straight of Hormuz, let it be closed so the global economy can collapse, no big deal.

GPS! Who needs than sh*t anyways? We can use paper maps! Forget that shipping and trucking fleets need it, delivering consumer goods is not important, empty grocery store shelves are awesome. I like starving...
Oh but the paper charts used by ships are made by the military too. And the canals and channels they use are maintained by the military. And the navigation aids... Oh well the channels can silt up and the ships can crash, because as we said before starving is awesome!

Oh an those dams maintained by the Army Corps of engineers, let them collapse, it is not like we need water and electricity, and people can drown.
Screw the levees, last time we got the military over extended and underfunded, only a few thousand died in Katrina. New Orleans can drown.

And hurricane Sandy, who needs emergency response offered by the military? And those lost at sea? They can drown too.

Lets create thousands more homeless vets! We do not have nearly enough!

Oh and this internet thing, well it was created with military funding, screw the internet too! Jet engines, rockets, navigation satellites, who needs that junk military funding developed?

/Sarcasm.

Why do we have to destroy the military to have health care? Do you have any idea how much your daily life relies on the military? (Ever heard of GPS?).

Sorry if this is angry, but this makes me furious. When I was on active duty I had fellow sailors working 80 hour weeks, who could not provide for their families. Have you every worked an 80 hour week, getting paid at a poverty rate, getting shot at? Try it some time, then let me know what you think about how much you like it. Where were you when we were in Haiti on extended deployment? Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Soldiers give their lives for your benefit, and are being treated and paid like crap. You want to repay them by throwing them out on the street?

The military is at a breaking point, and military spending has fallen to a historically very low percent of GDP. With military spending at a historic low, with soldiers going on food stamps, with the military cutting critical missions, do you really want to cut more? And what would you cut? GPS? Hurricane response? Dam and levee maintenance?

Plenty of nations have a decent military without spending the excessive amount of money the US does. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS India spends a full 1.2 percent less than the US does and they have a hostile nuclear power next door! Korea spends a percentage point less and they are technically at war with a nuclear power!

Umm, Korea can spend less because THE US MILITARY PROTECTS THEM!
Korea relies on the US military to support them, without the US Korea would have to double or triple what they spend. Terrible example, try again.

And will India and Korea protect the Yazidis from ISIS? Will Korea and India prevent them form being turned into sex slaves?

And Korea uses American GPS, and so does India. And I did not see a large contingent of Indian ships helping us in Haiti. How do those countries compare with us in humanitarian response? Nobody, absolutely nobody else has the ability to respond to disasters like the US Navy does.

Plus the US military has numerous functions those militaries might not have, like nautical charting (they use US charts anyways). Cutting the military would not save money, since you would need other government agency to take over functions like levee construction and canal maintenance. And is India fighting ISIS? The India military did not create GPS or the internet, but they use it.

Oh and what about Russia? If we cut the use military drastically NATO would collapse, we cannot fully meet our NATO commitments as it is. Russian troops would be in the Baltics. The US military has huge commitments other nations do not. And our military spending is not excessive, it is a lower percent of GDP than many countries, including Russia.

Look at the list of things I cited, how many has the Indian military done? None of them. Again, see Hurricane Katrina if you think the military is overfunded, we cannot maintain our infrastructure properly because our military is not adequately funded.

The US has capabilities and commitments those countries do not have. And again, we spend less than Russia on defense.
You cut our funding, you cut our commitments and capabilities. There is no way around it, and people will likely die as a result. When an huge earthquake or tsunami hits people need that US hospital ship and aircraft carrier to survive. Nobody else has anything comparable.

[Maqo]

Umm, Korea can spend less because THE US MILITARY PROTECTS THEM!

It has always seemed very odd to me that conservatives in the US are fine with the USA subsidizing the defense budgets of essentially every other country in the world, but aren't ok with subsidizing healthcare for their own citizens.

And Korea uses American GPS, and so does India. And I did not see a large contingent of Indian ships helping us in Haiti. How do those countries compare with us in humanitarian response? Nobody, absolutely nobody else has the ability to respond to disasters like the US Navy does.

... Haiti is a stone's throw away from the US but halfway across the world, literally 3 oceans away from India. Other nations help out in their local areas, but expecting India to send ships to Haiti is a bit ridiculous.

The US does do a lot of good work with their military. But the amount of humanitarian aid the US provides isn't going to be significantly diminished if there were only 12 aircraft carriers instead of 19. The US has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world *combined* - is that really necessary? Is the world really going to be plunged into war, is ISIS going to take over, if the US lost 20% of its military aircraft (which still places them ahead of all their closest 'enemies' combined)?

[The Nuclear Fist]

> "Conservative"
> Advocates Socialism

Now how does that work?

>Shitty 4chan meme
>Scare quotes
>Bad snark
>Hurr durr how doez I into soshulizm guise

Universal healthcare does not equal proletarian collective ownership of property and the economic means of production, nor is it a classless, moneyless society.

[Murkwood]

> "Conservative"
> Advocates Socialism

Now how does that work?

First they'll save the lives of the poor, next they'll be brining in gulags!

Ha ha. That's not what I was saying. I was saying that we need to stop this first stepping-stone to Socialism.

[Confederate Ramenia]

>>> "Conservative"
>>> Advocates Socialism

>>Now how does that work?
>>Shitty 4chan meme
>>Scare quotes
>>Bad snark
>>Hurr durr how doez I into soshulizm guise

>Universal healthcare does not equal proletarian collective ownership of property and the economic means of production, nor is it a classless, moneyless society.

>not even greentexting your meme arrows
>not knowing that most forms of socialism don't have collective ownership (government ownership not equal collective ownership)
>not knowing what democratic socialism and norwegian socialism are

[Communist Volkstrad]

First they'll save the lives of the poor, next they'll be brining in gulags!

Ha ha. That's not what I was saying. I was saying that we need to stop this first stepping-stone to Socialism.

Annnd why would you do that exactly? The slippery slope argument is bullshit. I don't see any truly socialist states in the world, and most of the first world has Universal Free Healthcare.