Someone to be abandoned when his Life is at risk, — dimosthenis9

Where is this happening?

When you ask someone to pay for his health, Isn't that abandonment? When that someone has 0 money?Of course I don't know all health care systems all over the world. Some might be free already.

But for me health care should be totally free everywhere worldwide. Here in my country you have to pay if you don't have insurance (working insurance) . And only a small amount of health care services are totally free. Which aren't enough and not important either.

If you're in the US and your life is in danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. They'll take care of you. No abandonment.

You set the humanity bar far too low. For you is just good enough that 911 won't tell you at the phone :
"oh go fuck yourself man and die!".
As if afterwards won't ask you money for the taking care in USA also.

You set the humanity bar far too low. — dimosthenis9

Believe it or not, I'm not in charge of the world.

Believe it.

When you ask someone to pay for his health, Isn't that abandonment? When that someone has 0 money?Of course I don't know all health care systems all over the world. Some might be free already.

But for me health care should be totally free everywhere worldwide. Here in my country you have to pay if you don't have insurance (working insurance) . And only a small amount of health care services are totally free. Which aren't enough and not important either.

What, if anything, is stopping you from offering free healthcare?

What, if anything, is stopping you from offering free healthcare? — NOS4A2

The private sector insurance industry, for one. You know, that giant sucking sound between the patient and doctor.

Nothing but I don't want. Thanks. I pay my taxes for that though. And I would be willing to pay even more if I knew that this gonna happen indeed!

Tax-funded healthcare isn't free, by any means. It's just that the money to pay for it has been taken from others. To provide free healthcare one must do so through his own efforts and charity.

Charity can't be used as an excuse for States not providing free healthcare. We can't expect the State's job to be done by charity organizations. Of course it's amazing anyone who does that(personally I admire them), but you can't expect all people to be so altruistic and act like that. One should offer charity only if he feels like doing it.

I didn't say people stop paying taxes totally. Of course State needs money as to provide free health care. It won't rain money suddenly. The thing is taxes to have actually some useful outcome. And what is more useful than free healthcare?

To provide free healthcare one must do so through his own efforts and charity. — NOS4A2

That's not free either.

Whats the cocktail effect? — Prishon

A phrase for when unseen and unintentional side-effects occur due to the combination and sum of many different separate things.

ALL doctors, drugstore owners, distribution companies, medical researchers, hospital and med equipment manufacturers, psychologists, alternative doctors, nurses (especially them...except when they are men...), or whoever works in that field, should get paid equally. Just eneough to survive. Obligatory. Maybe we should consider making them slaves. Thats where the gun comes in handy.

Free med care!

Research shows that a lot of the money in American healthcare is actually going to all the bureaucracy involved in funding, which is another reason to consider government control. It would allow those funds to go to preventative care which would mean. Americans might not be so sick when they get to a doctor and so outcomes would improve. — frank

Yes. And let's remember that also part of the money goes to for example medical malpractice insurances and bureaucracy. Or it could be explained simply: when something is intended to make a profit, it naturally means that the costs will be higher than when the intention is just to cover the costs.

Things like preventive care are those things that are extremely difficult to do without programs that cover all the population. And preventive care is naturally far cheaper.

It's just one case study tho. Why are you trying to extrapolate from one data point? — frank

It's not just one data point. It's a multitude of data. Now I don't want to bash the US and of course we can talk about the UK health care system, the French system, the Swiss system or my country's system (Finland), but I gather that many here are Americans.

And it's an interesting issue that the Worlds richest country has this kind of health care system. There are underlying factors just why it is so and they do start from issues like how the responsibility of the individual is seen.

Taken from ourselves, you meant to say. Not "others".

And this isn't unique to healthcare, the same is true for all other public expenditures- it comes from taxes- the only difference here is, unlike e.g. the billions of dollars we light on fire every year for military toys that sit unused in warehouses somewhere, is that the people footing the bill would actually enjoy some benefit from it. More benefit than we're currently getting, paying more for worse outcomes to our private health insurers/providers.

Again, a no-brainer. Which is why people are having such a hard time coming up with arguments against it.

Or it could be explained simply: when something is intended to make a profit, it naturally means that the costs will be higher than when the intention is just to cover the costs. — ssu

Makes sense, but my experience with for-profit hospitals is that that just trim the staff down to bare bones and charge the same thing non-profits charge. Costs are actually regulated by Medicare. Private insurance companies use their schedules. Payout is mostly by diagnosis. The hospital or clinic gets a lump sum for GSW (gun shot wound) or URI (upper respiratory infection).

If the provider spends less than the lump sum, they keep the extra. If they go over, they eat the loss.

To get Medicare funds a hospital has to be accredited by Joint Commission, which comes out and grills the staff and looks over documentation. The only times I've had to talk to them, they were actually really nice, buy it still makes everyone nervous.

Perhaps, to an extent. There are no free lunches. Someone has to pay for it either in effort, time (college years ie. youth spent studying vs. partying), or at the very least lost potential wages/income/revenue. Sure some people are wonderful and charitable. Now if the patient is a brilliant physicist who came down with a condition that impacts his work or a young child with a rare cancer that's a bit different than say some rude, alcoholic, drug addict who decided to slingshot off a bridge on a motorcycle for social media views or a degenerate thug who takes pleasure in harming others at bars who just so happened to finally meet his match, for example.

What is the responsibility of the state? A complex question. When the state will be attacked or even dismantled at the very suggestion of telling people what they can and cannot drink, eat, consume, etc. it comes down to the state having to protect its own existence. So the answer would simply be providing a reasonably safe enough and free environment for people to choose whether or not to live healthy and proper, without rewarding those who don't at the expense of those who do. Which is quite the conundrum.

So the answer would simply be providing a reasonably safe enough and free environment for people to choose whether or not to live healthy and proper, without rewarding those who don't at the expense of those who do. Which is quite the conundrum. — Outlander

Well said, yes.

And you perfectly show with that example that in the US it isn't pure "free market" health care. The government and the public sector still has a huge role. That's why the opposition to universal health care is so puzzling. (It isn't if you just assume that the sectors that benefit from the current system oppose any reform)

And you perfectly show with that example that in the US it isn't pure "free market" health care — ssu

It hasn't been for a long time now

The government and the public sector still has a huge role. — ssu

Yes.

That's why the opposition to universal health care is so puzzling. — ssu

It's a feature of gridlock.

My question was more about principles than what's wrong with the US. This is the second time Ive told you this.

I think I got it now.

It's basically about individualism and collectivism. What things are understood to be a collective effort, basically being financed with taxes and service given to everybody. Defense is quite universally understood as this kind of collective service. We have no trouble understanding that defense and policing is something that the state has a monopoly over. Anyone with a clear head understands just why this is so and how absolutely insignificant the market argument is in this case. If you would have competing military services, likely they would start fighting each other.

Hence we understand that defense is different. The real question is if health care is different too?

Is this basically what you are asking?

Anyone with a clear head understands just why this is so and how absolutely insignificant the market argument is in this case. If you would have competing military services, likely they would start fighting each other. — ssu

Yes. That was sort of the reason for the federally funded transcontinental railroad and universal telephone service. Competing entities just couldn't do the job. It would have to be centrally planned, so there were provisional monopolies with profit caps and heavy regulation.

A case where a central plan emerged spontaneously is computer technology. The IBM scheme came to dominate partly because they didn't patent their design. Anyone could build an IBM clone, so it became the standard by virtue of popularity.

Other public functions are things like education, where the original principle was that voters need to be able to read. The post office, which I think was meant to facilitate development in general.

I don't know how to compare healthcare to those things. How would you?

A case where a central plan emerged spontaneously is computer technology. The IBM scheme came to dominate partly because they didn't patent their design. Anyone could build an IBM clone, so it became the standard by virtue of popularity. — frank

That's a perfect example of an actual company getting close to a monopoly situation. Add there just how Microsoft became to be so important.

I don't know how to compare healthcare to those things. How would you? — frank

I would always look at the history how the healthcare sector has been organized in a country. It tells a lot just why the health care systems are the way as they are. And in that historical narrative you find the major actors, the political parties and elites who have driven through the decisions. Also you then might understand better sometimes a very confusing system.

I would always look at the history how the healthcare sector has been organized in a country. It tells a lot just why the health care systems are the way as they are. And in that historical narrative you find the major actors, the political parties and elites who have driven through the decisions. Also you then might understand better sometimes a very confusing system. — ssu

How was it traditionally organized in Finland?

Yes, given how poorly mental healthcare works without state involvement.