Healthcare

[DarkLink]

I found this on the internet, and found this pretty interesting.

[daboarder]

healthcare should be public.

[gwensdad]

Totally unrelated irony-that video is by John Green. John Green is an author who is currently having one of his books turned into a movie. One of the actors in that movie is Ansel Elgort who apparently is a former Golden Deamon winner (or at least entrant-he has at least 1 model on GW's site).

(totally unrelated, but somehow swings back to 40K) (also, look up John Green's Crashcourses on World History and American History)

[eldargal]

A minor issue:

If things in America are more expensive because America is wealthier then why is everything but healthcare cheaper? Given everything else he says I'm not sure it's a particularly relevant point.

The conclusion that I reach from watching that video is that the American system is just ****ed up.

[Psychosplodge]

Not watched it yet.
But if you're running healthcare in a manner that has to include profit for shareholders, surely by definition you're artificially inflating the cost?

[Wolfshade]

I do find it amusing that you have a healthcare system that is double biased. With its cost only the wealthy can afford it, also, we all know the wealthy are healthier and need less frequent access to it.

Really what needs to be done is some mass market single source supplier that can leverage economies of scale to push the price down for the end user and yet has sufficient resource to have centres of excellence for specific surgerys. Now you could average the cost of it across the entire area it serves so everyone pays a little bit regardless of how intensive they use it, in the same way people who use roads a lot don't pay more than the people you use roads a little and everyone gets the benefit. It could be set up to run not for profit, though that might be too leftist for some I understand.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

'think of a number' pricing is rampant in US healthcare provision, which is why there can be huge disparities in the prices of the same drugs and services across state borders.

Think of a number pricing is exactly what you think it is.

[Mr Mystery]

I challenge the assertion that any country is civilised when medics check your wallet, then your pulse.

NHS might be far from perfect, but it's saved my life at least four times. And I'm happy to report I am no longer burdening the NHS with my healthcare, as I get BUPA through work.

A healthy workforce is a productive work force. In the US, how many people can't work due to relatively minor ailments? For instance, someone with a dodgy hip. All they need is a hip replacement op. It's doable. It's safe. It's got a good success rate...except because it's pre-existing, your cover is astronomic, and because it limits your work potential, you can't afford the cover, or to pay for it yourself. Net result? One person, willing and otherwise able to work, prevented. And probably looked down on as a burden on society.

Seriously USA, sort yourselves out.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

You're forgetting the hospitals in poor areas with third world infant mortality rates and the fatalities caused every year by people not being able to PAY TO SURVIVE.
In a country where the right to lifers will throw dolls full of fake blood at abortion clinics no less.
America is a country of contradictions. Not all of them bad, but contradictions none the less.

[Wolfshade]

One of my favourite moments on the Obamacare discussion was when US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily has said that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

The original source has been "amended" to remove the fallacy that Hawking wasn't from the UK.

Hawking responded in the telegraph:

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."