Americans set to get standardised/universal healthcare

[Gorgon]

See, I dont even understand this mentality. Like we have to "stick it to the man" because he makes more then me? What?

 

 

 

No, just that you are the one paying the bonus. If most of the health care sector wasn't profit driven, it would cost a lot less.

 

Ensurers charge whatever they can get away with, the more the merrier. Now if they were competing with a public alternative they would have to really step up their game to survive.

 

 

There is still a market for private insurance in UHC countries, it allows companies make sure their workers can get 'non essential treatment' right away (what Taks was meant with rationing). A few weeks of rehab without a waiting list after a back injury will get the employee back to work faster, that kind of thing.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Gorgon

[Gfted1]

Oh my god, the maths! My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

 

 

Your sentiment is correct but your math is wrong. It would still be 13% of your family income, since it's twice as large as what you each make individually.

 

 

Hehe, while I dont understand why Im wrong Im willing to concede that I probably am. Math was never my strong suit. Anyone willing to splain to me how two individuals suffering a 13% decrease EACH does not equal 26% total?

[Gorgon]

13% of what, do you make exactly the same salary. If not it literally is apples to oranges.

[Gfted1]

Huh? To fund UHC, models show it would take a 13% increase in taxes for every working person in the country. So, theoretically, my paycheck would decrease by 13% as would my wifes, for an overall 26% reduction in our total take home monies.

[Gorgon]

20% of 100 is 20

 

20% of 200 is 40.

 

Now, 40% of 300 is 120, not 60. See where I'm going with this. If you each pay 13% more it comes to 13% of something + 13% of something else. Not 26%.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Gorgon

[Gfted1]

Yeah, I see where youre going but....at the end of the day, regardless of who makes what, the bottom line is the total bring home monies of our combined salaries is reduced by 26%, no?

 

For example, I make 100K / year and she makes 100K / year, for a combined total of 200K. Right. Now apply an additional 13% tax to each. That doesnt equal a total reduction of 26%?

 

Im not purposely being a knucklehead here, Im genuinely confused.

[Amentep]

Lets say you make X dollars a year and your wife makes 80% of what you do. So you make X, she makes .8X and together your total income equals 1.8X

 

If you each lose 13% from your income to pay for UHC, that puts you at

 

(1-.13)X= .87X

and your wife at

1-.13 * .8X = (.87 * .8 )X or .696X

 

So your total income is now .87X + .696X or 1.566X

 

1-1.566/1.8 = 1-.87= .13 = 13%

 

So your total loss is still at 13% as a family income.

 

Or in your example (.13*100K) + (.13*100K) = 87K + 87K = 174K

1-(174/200) = .13 = 13%

Edited September 16, 2009 by Amentep

[Gfted1]

I see, that makes perfect sense, thanks Tep.

 

Im still not willing to pay it.

[taks]

it's called superposition, a property of linearity: f(x+y) = f(x) + f(y). percentages are linear, so 0.13*(a+b) = 0.13*a+0.13*b, where a and b are your salaries, as amentep and gorgon described.

 

good job for putting the smack down on Gfted1 guys!

 

and for the record, i don't want to pay it either.

 

taks

[Nartwak]

NO SOCIALEST!!

Ha hahahaha

[Blarghagh]

Believe me, I too would have loved to roll off my mothers teat and right onto the governments.

See, this right here, this is exactly what I mean. This has nothing to do with point of view. This is just rationalising it to yourself to make it seem like they are somehow lesser people that don't deserve your support. Just makes you look like you're trying to convince yourself more than anyone else.

 

 

Im not rationalizing anything. While I dont feel they are "lesser" people, they absolutely do not deserve my forced support at the expence of my family. Period. Go die in a ditch for all I care. With your line of thinking I should also be forced to feed all the homeless too right? Damn whatever negative effects it has on my family right?

 

Give me a good reason why I should suffer an over one-quarter reduction to my families income for someone else.

 

I will not give you any reasons because it has and would not have anything to do with what I said at all. I argued nothing for what support you should or should not give and I don't intend to start now. Your entire reply to me is based on you assuming my position on this where I gave none. My criticism was the constant implication that people who make use of this kind of support when given are by default some sort of "bottomfeeders" with no redeeming quality. That all they do is leech off people (like your post, first the parents, then the government).

 

I mean, it's fine that you don't want to be forced to surrender your income to help someone else, but don't try to make that someone else seem like a worse person. That has no purpose in this topic or any other. It just makes it seem like you're trying to justify your opinion to yourself or to us despite your best efforts to convince us that you don't have to justify it to anyone. No offense meant, because I'm pretty sure you're a nice guy, but it really just makes you look like kind of a jerk.

Edited September 17, 2009 by TrueNeutral

[Hiro Protagonist]

I'm not sure how it works in the U.S.

 

If a person in the U.S. has a car accident and are near death and unconscious, they don't have health insurance but are taken to a hospital for life saving surgery, treatment and rehabilitation. I'm guessing that person is going to have a huge bill to pay? Isn't the hospital taking financial advantage of that person as the person has no say in whether they want treatment? Faced with a million dollar bill or death, maybe that person would have preferred being dead?

 

Or in the above scenario, does the hospital check whether the person has health insurance first and if they don't, they turn the critically injured person away?

[Maria Caliban]

4) Every swiss over the age of 18 have to, by law, have a healthcare insurance.

 

The majority of Americans could not afford it. The last time I had health care, I paid $300 a month and that was with my employer sucking up about 60% of the bill.

[Blarghagh]

Wow.

 

I forgot how much I pay exactly but it's not nearly that much. But I'm not entirely sure how the system here in The Netherlands works anymore because it has changed several times in the last few years. I'm pretty sure you have to pay some of your medical bills yourself, up to a certain cost. I think I pay around €125 per month with additional costs up to €155 depending on needed healthcare, excluding stuff my employer fronts.

Edited September 17, 2009 by TrueNeutral

[Amentep]

I'm not sure how it works in the U.S.

 

If a person in the U.S. has a car accident and are near death and unconscious, they don't have health insurance but are taken to a hospital for life saving surgery, treatment and rehabilitation. I'm guessing that person is going to have a huge bill to pay? Isn't the hospital taking financial advantage of that person as the person has no say in whether they want treatment? Faced with a million dollar bill or death, maybe that person would have preferred being dead?

 

Or in the above scenario, does the hospital check whether the person has health insurance first and if they don't, they turn the critically injured person away?

 

As I understand it - and I could very well be wrong - it depends on whether the hospital they arrive at is a private or public hospital. Public hospitals are obligated to help all; private hospitals are, I believe, only obligated to stabilize a patient before transferring them to a public hospital if they have no insurance (or, in fact, if the insurance company wants them to be in one of their hospitals).

[Maria Caliban]

I'm not sure how it works in the U.S.

 

If a person in the U.S. has a car accident and are near death and unconscious, they don't have health insurance but are taken to a hospital for life saving surgery, treatment and rehabilitation. I'm guessing that person is going to have a huge bill to pay?

 

The person will have a huge bill to pay. If the hospital believes you don't have insurance, most nurses/doctors will go with the least expensive option available for immediate treatment.

 

The problem comes later on when it comes to 'treatment and rehabilitation.'

Edited September 17, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Hiro Protagonist]

As long as you're not in critical condition, a hospital does not have to treat you.

 

 

Isn't the hospital taking financial advantage of that person as the person has no say in whether they want treatment?

 

The hospital is doing what it

Edited September 17, 2009 by Hiro Protagonist

[HoonDing]

Us Belgians have never really felt that 'socialism' imparted on our freedom. Being overrun over the ages by the Romans, Franks, Burgundians, French (twice), German & Spanish Habsburgs, Austrians & Dutch might have something to do with that. After all that, we really didn't care whether the Russians would come or not.

[Wrath of Dagon]

A hospital, whether public or private, can't check you out until you're in good enough condition, they could transfer you to another hospital if they can find one though. And yes, legally they're required to treat everybody, doesn't mean they actually do it in practice.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Maria Caliban]

Hi Maria.

 

This is where it gets a bit grey for me.

 

1. As long as you're not in critical condition, a hospital does not have to treat you. BUT

2. The hospital is doing what it

[Meshugger]

4) Every swiss over the age of 18 have to, by law, have a healthcare insurance.

 

The majority of Americans could not afford it. The last time I had health care, I paid $300 a month and that was with my employer sucking up about 60% of the bill.

 

I doubt the price would be the same since,

 

1) Everybody has to have an insurance, and

2) There are laws on how much (in percentage) an healthcare insurance would be compared to the your disposable income.

[Wrath of Dagon]

That's actually the plan they came up with in the Senate finance committee.

[Meshugger]

That's actually the plan they came up with in the Senate finance committee.

 

...and what's the status now?

[Gfted1]

^Nothing yet, it was just released yesterday.

[Theseus]

Now, do you have any actual experience or evidence of UHC offering poorer quality treatment or is it really just apprehension and suspicion based on your personal conviction about what health care should be like ?

in that quote i was talking about the amount of care per dollar, gorgon, not quality (which could lead to poorer quality overall, but that's not what i was arguing). please, no more strawmen.

 

rationing is a basic problem of socialized anything. supply is limited and for most, if not all products/services, supply and demand are not equal. the free market adjusts by increasing/decreasing the price to the point that demand is reduced/increased to meet supply. socialized systems do not have such a mechanism. demand for health care services far outweighs supply, and as a result, someone has to decide who gets what care. rationing.

 

notice, very little of what i argue is about my "personal conviction," i.e, my "feelings" about this. it is about what can logically work, and what has actually happened.

 

and, for the record, nearly 50% of the US health care system is already socialized (medicare, medicaid, military/government employee* health care plans). those systems cost far, far more than politicians ever thought they would, so it's not like we don't already have evidence in our own back yards that i'm right about this.

 

taks

 

* 47% was the last i saw, and i'm not sure if the government employees fall into this, though i would be surprised if they didn't.

Is your premise that everything comes down to economics and not people?