Does anybody realize the hidden cost of not having Universal Health Care in this country.?

Question

The CEO of General Moters tells the prisident that $1500 of every new car sold goes to pay for heath care benefit for its employees. I would assume that this is also true of many industrys. We pay that. It also makes it hard for U.S. company's to compete in a global market, this means American jobs going off shore. There are many other hidden cost because of this issue. Can you name some?

Answer rat, we need serious discusion in this country about U. H. C., This is what I am doing about it. If you had look at may questions you would see that I have devoted much of the last couple of weeks asking questions about it. My friend from Canada has answered on of my other questions and I thank him.

I should have engaged brain better before typing added details. Sorry for the typo's, thanks to all that are answering postively.

Answer 1

I live in Canada where I have always had Universal health care , I think it is great and wish all our American friends down south the best of luck in obtaining their own universal health care. No system will ever make everyone happy but at least you know you won`t loose everything you own if you get in a serious accident.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Sure, it would be tough to determine all of the hidden costs, but this would also be true of turning over our health care system to the government. Just name one thing they havent screwed up. The primary reasons health care is so expensive are: powerful labor unions that jack up costs in places like GM and set the cost standard for those of us that are not so blessed; a legal profession that work over the health system for profit; a medical profession that limits their numbers in order to keep income high. Do you not understand that all of these powerful forces will have a much greater voice in a government system than you do?

We were given a great gift by the founding fathers, a constitutionally limited republic. They were wise enough to see that every power, however well intentioned, given to the government was also one that could, and inevitably would, be used against the governed. This has been well demonstrated thruout history. We have foolishly allowed the government to assume powers far beyond those constitutionally authorized. The result: the average person works thru the middle of May every year before he earns a dime that is his own, and for what? Only a small amount of that goes for national defense to protect us from the bad guys, one of the few things the government is legally allowed to do. The rest is of little or no value to the average working person.
We will all be better served if we take responsibility for our own health care instead of buying into the fantasy that the government will take care of us when they make a muck of everything.

Answer 4

It is a difficult question to answer when persons feel that having a universal health care plan would necessarily involve higher taxation, and some not seeing how current health care expenditures are passed on to consumers.

The major hidden cost of not having universal health care is poor healthcare for poor people, especially poor children.

Another cost passed on to consumers is caused by persons lacking insurance going to emergency rooms and not being able to pay for those services. Services in an emergency room are vastly higher in price than the identical services performed in a clinic or doctors office. Would you go to the emergency room for bronchitis? Many, many, poor people do and the cost of their service paid for through higher service rates for everyone else.

It is silly to think that by shopping for lowest price good could cost us more health care dollars later, but it is true. You shop at VValmart, where very few employees have health care, you are actually subsidizing health care coverage for their employees, because many VValmart employees go to the emergency room. So you got a good price and Elmo, but you paid later in healthcare premiums.

The exact reason for universal health care is to contain costs for the program and get people seeing doctors for non-emergencies, not seeing emergency staffs for coughs and colds. No matter what the poor do for health care, employed people are footing the bill.

Answer 5

Medicare cannot negotiate fair prices for drugs, so millions of elderly Americans must pay high prices for needed drugs or do without.

Millions of Americans have no health care at all. When they get sick, they go to hospital emergency rooms rather than to primary doctors. The cost is often passed on to taxpayers or to other patients. Emergency Room care is many times as expensive as primary care.

Similarly, people without health care insurance seldom practice preventative medicine. Therefore, their illnesses are more serious and longer lasting (thus more costly) than the illnesses of people who can regularly obtain health care. The social costs in lost work days and families going bankrupt is very high.

Answer 6

Personally I'm upset about those who can't insurance as they transistion from one job to another or career to retirement path. I have 2 close friends effected now. One has a 7 year old daughter that can't be insured because no provider will accept her because she is on heart medicine. The other is elderly and was RIF'd prior to retirement and now unemployed is considered preexisting due to his heart history and diabetes. He can't get an insurer to accept him either. We have contacted everyone in power and they say it is against the law in this state to not have insurance, however there is nothing to force any provider to accept you. There is a state program in place however, neither qualify because the 7 yr olds single mom works and the elderly man gets social security.

So my question back to you would be how would Universal Health Care effect these people and the countless others like them?

Answer 7

This is an interesting question and one that warrants the pros and cons from every angle.
I appreciate the statement about this creating difficulty in global economic competition and this is a VERY important consideration to be made for the future of the US economy.

I will be back to review your answers and hope that their are some thought provoking opinions regarding this issue.
Thank you.

Answer 8

Epidemics of communicable diseases among low income workers in major cities (think about that the next time you stay in a $ 300 a night hotel where the beds are changed by $ 8/hr housekeepers with no benefits!)

Answer 9

I don't think a universal health care plan is nescesary. let's keep throwing billions of dollars at billion dollar corporations to keep ripping the American people off! Why don't we all send cheney a $100 dollar donation he probably didn't make enough from haliburton. That's how I want to see my money spent, not on something useless like health care.

Answer 10

How about, if the guy passing you on the street has TB, and hasn't gotten adequate treatment, that exposes you to TB? Or when poor women don't get adequate prenatal care because they can't afford it, and they don't have health insurance, that drives up maternity costs for all women.