You're right; individuals have to take responsibility as well. I have no issue with some "incentives" for being responsible for choices.
Even with universal health care, there still won't be the same access for everyone. I quite imagine that UHS/NHS, whatever, won't pay for a second opinion. So, once again, those who can afford it out of pocket, win. Everyone wants an easy fix, and there isn't one.
I don't remember 60% of the populace in the middle class in the late 90s? I'm not sure of your point even if i agreed with the premise.
I was referencing the '50s. My point was larger the middle class from good wage jobs, the better the economy does. I know you are a supply-sider. I am not.
I know you were, but the late 90s had the lowest unemployment rate in history and the highest inflation adjusted salaries. There is no evidence for this premise. None. It's something people like to say, but has no historical accuracy. Artificially raising middle class wages would be the quickest way this country would go bankrupt. See Greece, Spain and Italy who all have these type of wage controls. But even if you are correct, i'm failing to see what it has to do for health insurance for all.
You're jumping to conclusions. I didn't remotely mean anything about wage controls. At best, I see the supply-side/demand-side economics debate as as chicken/egg argument. I think you're talking about one thing, and I'm talking about something else. I'm not sure how to walk it back either.
Government run health care "utopia" doesn't exist but I'm not sure why it necessarily needs to be. It just has to be better than the system we have now. I'm not sure why the argument against these type of measures is that it doesn't turn society into Shangri La and has flaws with people manipulating the system. To me, its still a better product than we have now. And, there are plenty of places around the world that are happy with their single payer system. The funny thing is listening to people say "We don't want it because we could turn into ," and then I talk to someone from there, finding out that they actually like it. Our health care system is a joke around the world.
The answer to complete piece of shit legislation is not to turn around and become a complete piece of shit. That's all I am saying about this.
When I was in Italy I was talking to a local who had pretty severe breast cancer (according to her). She tells me she only paid $500 out of pocket. She also told me that the place she was told to go to was only 20 miles away. Now keep in mind this is in rural tuscany so it's not as though she went to rome or florence. I had never heard of said city. Now she was very happy with her healthcare. All I could think about is if my wife had breast cancer I sure as hell wouldn't want her to get treated in the middle of nowhere and I would gladly pay the extra couple of grand that my insurance would charge me out of pocket to go to a top person in the field. My point? She didn't know any better. But I guess she's alive. . . Also her husband lived on the govt dole and spent his time making some sort of orange based limonada and getting drunk every day. She didn't seem to think anything was wrong with that. They lived in a rather nice house too. She showed it to me.
Folks I know in Romania talked about having to provide the gov't doctors with bribes to get good care, and they went to private clinics if they could at all manage it.
I also sympathize with the idea of universal healthcare. I mean it really, really sucks to be sick, and it's something that absolutely no one can predict but we know that it will happen to all of us at some point. To have to pay to the point of bankruptcy just adds insult to injury. At the same time, the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection contribute to even higher prices of avoiding that situation. But adverse selection is not the heart of the problem. The main problem with health care is on the supply side. There are three problems: we need more health care period (i.e. there needs to be more doctors/hospitals/competition. There need to be more medical schools, and physician assistant schools.), we need prices to be clear and competitive (it's ludicrous that a doctor can't quote you the price of angioplasty surgery or a masectomy or that you can't look that up on the internet), and finally health care professionals need to be protected from crazy lawsuits. There needs to be a limit. When you go to a doctor, you should know that there is a chance that they could get it wrong. One final problem is that demand for health care in this country is almost perfectly inelastic. I mean w/o health and life, what do you have? At least this is the mindset. This problem is exacerbated as more and more people have thrown religion to the wind. If all you have to live for is this life, you're gonna do whatever it takes to stick around. We need some some price controls. Should doctors be highly paid--absolutely. But in a profession which serves a NEED, they shouldn't be millionaires, and the profits that for-profit hospitals can make should be limited.
Give me a break. The overhead for many of these guys is like 70%. You reduce profits anymore and you eliminate the profession. Also the amount of money invested in being able to practice is crazy.
A huge chunk of the overhead comes from insurance costs. Get those down and you're halfway home. Also, since there is no price competition most are competing on "quality." Life expectancies have increased since the 60's, but not dramatically. The level of technology from back then would be sufficient in doctor's offices.
And nothing will improve the quality of care like making doctors compete with each other like used car salesmen.
Yes caps on success. I'm not proposing communism, just some reasonable limits. How do you get the bold from my post?
At this point, quality is not the industry's problem; it's quantity. Hospitals go to court to keep other hospitals from entering a market. Universities are constantly denied med-schools.
