What is the big objection to Universal heath care? It seem to make good fiscal sense to me.?

Question

I understand my taxes will go up, but if I can stop paying the insurance premium won’t I have about the same amount of money in my pocket? What difference does it make if I send the money to Blue Cross or Medicare?

Won’t it be good for business, especially small business? If they don’t have to provide health insurance for their employees (and pay for a chunk of it too) in order to attract good talent won’t they be able to focus on their business?

They say GM has to add $1,500 to the price of every car it builds in the US to cover health care costs of it’s employees. But the cars they build in Canada don’t have that extra overhead.

All the people without insurance and can’t pay use the Emergency room which is the most expensive care there is. That everyone has to pay anyway. If we had universal coverage, they could go to a regular doctor for a fraction of the cost of the ER. Won’t that save everyone money?

Answer 1

Do you really want the government in charge of health care? They have problems efficiently running anything. It will turn into an extremely costly mess.

Answer 2

What incentive would a doctor have to continue his practice?
Doctors would just get a regular job and then we would have
long waiting lists to get medical attention, take a look at
Canada, people are dying to get needed care.

Yes we have ungodly costs for health care today, I had a blood clot in my leg, had a procedure done and spent 24 hours in I.C.U, next day had a stint placed in my leg and another 12 hours in ICU and 12 hours in a regular room, my hospital bill was almost $100,000, my insurance paid approximately $3,000 to completely clear the account because of their discounts.

What we need to do is to keep the insurance companies
from getting the high premiums for liability insurance
and to limit the number of fraudulent law suits. Ask
John Edwards how he made his millions, he sued
doctors and hospitals for hundreds of millions for
genetic diseases he claimed that they caused.

That kind of crap has got to stop!!

Answer 3

1. There are plenty of county hospitals that help people that can't afford to pay otherwise.
2. Nationwide free care would also mean up to 2 year waits for procedures.
3. I already help give to charities for people in and out of this great country of mine. I don't need to be forced to do it. Where the hell is free will in all this?
4. What will those people receiving care with my money do for my country? Will they join the military? Will they become better members of their communities? Or will they have yet another excuse to sit around and do nothing, since it seems to be paying off so much?

Answer 4

Well--there's plenty of problems. Here's one example: currently, under Medicare, seniors who are placed in nursing homes have the bulk of their costs covered. This has led to a boom in the nursing home industry--great for business--and our seniors are cared for. Right?

Wrong. Dead (literally, in some cases) wrong. Literally millions of the aged population could be living independantly--with a limited degree of help--but still part of the community. They are not because the powerful lobbying machine and campaign contributions of the nursing home/HMO's has effectively blocked reforms that would allow Medicare to pay for assisted living for our seniors.

This lowers their quality of life--in some cases shortens lives. And it is 3-10 times as expensive. That adds up to tens of billions of dollars a year that goes into the pockets of a few people.

That's only one example. There are others--just as bad or worse.

We do need reform of the health care system. Drastic and comprehensive. But the current approaches--simply expanding coverage (the "liberal" approach) or privatizing (the "conservative" approach) promise nothing but a further growth along the lines I just described in the nursing home example--and most of them (on both ends of the political spectrum) only increase the burden on consumers--mostly to pay for more waste, not better services.

Here's some suggestions: (in addition to fixing the one I just described):
>get malpractice suits against doctors and hospitals under control by mandating that malpractice must be proved before damages can be awarded. Under the current system a doctor is guilty unless he/she can prove otherwise, to all intents and purposes. And because so much of medicine is a judgment call, its often impossible to prove that. We give accused murderers better protection in court than we do the people who are saving our lives.
>Stop giving the drug industry multi-billiondollar subsidies--at least without requiring that they reinvest the money in real research (meaning not still more new-and-improved headach remedies).
>Get serious about preventative care and health education. This is an area that gets a lot of opposition from the right--because so much of it involves providing services in poor areas--and clinics, health education programs, etc. are perceived by them as "giveaways" --not always in a derogatory sense; many conservatives genuinely believe that too much help encourages habits that trap people in poverty 9and they aren't entirely wrong). But preventative care is ALWAYS cheaper in the long run.

>We need to restore the autonomy of doctors and hospitals. There's amyth out there that commercialized medicine (HMOs, etc) help reduce costs--and the data simply don't support that.

Should we have some sort of "national health care system?" Answer--we already do--with private edicine, and with Medicare/Medicaid--the system already covers everyone. What we need to do is start fixing the system we have, not create still another massive system and brueaucracy that doesn't address the underlying problems.

Answer 5

How many people in the insurance business will lose their jobs?
Will elective surgeries be included,boob jobs,sex changes,making ugly people pretty?
Once the politicians get hold of your health care dollar,how high will the bill go ?

Why not make it simple.
You and your employer pay xx dollars over the year, both of you get to write every cent off at tax time.
The government pays but has no control over it .

Answer 6

Watered down treatment, long lines at the doctor, little or no choice to your physician or your care. Lack of incentive for doctors to do everything needed... should I go on? It only works in utopia, and look around... this isn't it. The cost will also be staggering, don't forget Canada doesn't have to support a military since we are pretty much their military.

Answer 7

Good sense is an anathema to the people who presently profit from this system...the insurance companies.
And make no mistake about it, they are a powerful lobby with help from the drug companies about the last thing they want is laws that will keep them from charging what they want to.
So we will continue to hear about not having a choice of doctors...when it can sometimes mean having no doctor to go to. Or how government will make health care decisions for you...instead of an insurance company that is profit driven to keep you from getting the best care possible.
Or someone is sure to say that cosmetic surgery for illegals is coming, when cosmetic surgery isn't covered now for anyone, nor will it be, but neither is lifesaving surgery for citizens now.
Its scare tactics and those who grump about never needing a doctor and why should they pay for those who do never realize they are a blood clot away from losing everything.
Health care is already being paid for by a patchwork of insurance and private payers, those who may need the system the most have the least chance of paying for it. The elderly, the ill and infirm and newborns. No one can pay the costs of cardiac care or a stroke, and recovery and physical therapy is limited by insurance. Making a profit adds costs, and our government is certainly competent enough to run social security, and all the other things it used to run well before this less-than-compassionate conservatives, including Medicare. Lets not forget if the only choice we have is private insurance or no medical care we are still going to pay for it in taxes, you didn't think hospitals pay their workers and bought their supplies in feathers did you?

Answer 8

What makes you think that your insurance premiums will stop? Those already covered by insurance will continue to pay for it. Insurance companies will not alow themselves to be legislated out of business. It will be a collaboration of private and public services that will be a f**king mess.

Answer 9

OK, imagine your current visit to the ER. Now times that by about 5 times the wait. And ask anyone in Canada that is waiting for a lung, kidney, etc. Many people in this system die before getting care.

Answer 10

First off,emergency rooms are bound by law to treat anyone that comes in, regardless of ability to pay! If you were to become a doctor, would you like to have the government tell you how much you could charge a customer/patient?
Would you, as a patient want to wait a month for an MRI?, or how about bypass surgery, or if your kid has the flu, would you want to wait a week before a doctor could/would see him, or her?

Answer 11

You should speak with people in Nations that have Universal healthcare.

Especially those that have lost loved ones because the state chose that the person didn't qualify for a particularly risky and expensive operation or procedure, one that may result in a long term recovery and therapy.

You don't get to have that choice anymore - the government does. The Government decides what kind of procedures and tests are approved to be used, and they have charts and references that takes your age, conditions of health, family history, etc, and from that they determine a score. If that score falls outside the parameters - you lose.

I'd much rather try fixing the medical system and bring Big Pharma under control than switch to a system that allows the state to let me die because I'm too old, or too risky, to be allowed a life saving operation because I don't score worthy of it.