Americans pay way more than any other country for health care, shouldn't our system take care of all of us?

Question

why are we comparing ourselves to Canada or GB, or France.....we pay more than twice what they pay........

if we're shelling out that kind a dough, we should have a system that is far and away better than anyone else on the planet........but we have people dying on our emergency room floors, and patients being dumped on skid row,,,,,while doctors order C-sections because its more profitable for the hospitals

and lets not overlook the fact 60% of working Americans cannot afford healthcare--------AND 92% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of an illness of a family member or the wager earner of the family

Answer 1

I'm for universal health care in the United States across the board. The United States does have semi-universal healthcare system for the elderly, disabled, military service families and veterans, and the poor through state governments. The problem is that the United States goverment doesn't provide any health care for the huge middle-class population. Instead they allow hundreds of privately owned health insurance companies, through work or outside of work, compete with one another for your business. The demand for health care drives these companies rates up, making many Americans and doctors upset.

Compared to alot of countries in the world, the United States government pays only %44.6 of health care costs. France is considered to have the best health care system currently, and the goverment pays %76.3 of healthcare costs. You can see that countries who have a better health care system have a higher life expectancy rate. The United States, 77.5 years of age, does poorly compared to developed countries in Europe, or Canada (80.5 years of age).

In the United States, which has some of the most sophisticated, technologically advanced health care in the world, 12% to 16% of the citizens are still unable to afford complete health insurance. Having universal health care would provide service for all of course and increase our life expectancy. We would reduce these bureaucratic administration costs and save money by putting that money towards towards health care.

Answer 2

Americans wouldn't pay more taxes for healthcare. That's a scare tactic from the Republican party. Do the math and be street smart. Say right now your paying 50 bucks for Medicare and another 50 bucks for a privately owned health insurance comapany. That's a hundred bucks. Say we got rid of privately owned health insurance companies and Medicare, that 100 dollars would go towards a "universal health care" system. Where would you paying more in taxes? Hell, you might pay less then your paying for Medicare and a privately owned health insurance company through work! This way, the governemt would make sure your money is going towards the health care, not a percentage going into the private health care companies wallets like they do now. The health care system is no different then a company that sells computers or cars. They are a business that goes by supply and demand.

Answer 3

If healthcare were nationalized, it's cost would skyrocket, not to mention we would have to pay even more for it in taxes.
All of the countries you mentioned have a huge problem. Their healthcare systems are so inundated with patients that they have to put people on waiting list for even the most basic of surgeries. Another reason our healthcare system is so expensive is that people from countries with nationalized healthcare keep coming here to have their surgeries and you and I both know that we will not turn anybody away.
Estimates of the cost of nationalized healthcare have been set as high as 3 trillion dollars. Where do you think that money will come from? Your wallet. If it is all the same to you, I will keep my money and find a job that provides a good health insurance plan.

Answer 4

They pay twice the taxes we do. There is no such thing as free health care. It's all a matter of which billing system you want to use.

And FYI the #1 factor in healthcare cost today is the insurance doctors and hospitals are force to have due to the insane lawsuits this country allows. Deal with those lawsuits.. and the cost of healthcare will drop dramatically.

Answer 5

You are mistaken. If you count only out of pocket expenses, any government in the world that is socialist is going to look like heaven.

Add the taxes you pay for products, the prices you pay for inflated goods, the taxes on income, the taxes you spend to pay for the medical care disguised as general taxes, and we get off VERY cheap.

Socialism is the most expensive form of government in the world because it removes the competition motive (no reason to keep prices down), encourages the most government (have to control those prices), and discourages excellence (why try when I can't get paid extra, with no extra reward for doing better?)

Thank goodness we AREN'T more socialist.

The system DOESN'T take care of us in socialism. It TAKES our money and makes the decisions for us, as well as gives it to whomever it chooses.

I want the choice. Why would I give that up to my government?

Answer 6

The reason health care costs so much in this country and why we get so little is pretty obvious, if you think about it. It's the exact same reason the nursing field and such is undermanned.

Lawsuits.

For example: If an 86 year old man goes in for open heart surgery and dies on the table...what is the family's second reaction after grief?

Call their lawyer for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Rape the doctor and hospital for every cent you feasibly can.

I see it all the time, since I work on an ICU Step-Down unit as (basically) an LPN. We've had patients who (on fall precautions and in a lowboy bed) get out of bed on their own and fall...and then the family is talking about lawsuits because their loved one was hurt in a hospital. They complain about how no one was watching them...yet our nurses are assigned to four patients each and the LPNs are assigned to anywhere from 8 to 20 each (I had 19 today for a 12 1/2 hour shift).

It's a self-defeating system. People are afraid to work in the field because of the lawsuits that are abound involving medical malpractice (Your baby was born deformed? It's the doctor's fault! Call us for medical malpractice lawsuit advice!), and yet because of how stretched thin the few people willing to work in the field are...it's much easier for people to get hurt.

Doctors, surgeons, physicians, etc., etc. carry massive amounts of medical malpractice insurance just in case something happens and they get sued because someone died during a procedure from an unforeseen complication.

Hospitals themselves carry massive amounts of assorted insurance to deal with lawsuits involving family members being injured because of the understaffed units and their inability to follow basic commands. Just recently, I had a patient (who was confused at the time) threaten to sue me because I kept pushing him back down in bed - and he was restrained at the wrists and kept getting out of the foot of the bed, which could kill him with his wrists restrained because he kept removing lines and catheters. So I had to keep him in bed until the physician arrived to reorder four point leather restraints.

It's a scary field to work in, with all the hungry lawyers and sue-happy families just waiting for someone in their family to die or get hurt so they can get more money in their pocket.

It's sad, really. But that is why health care is so expensive in this country.

The lawsuits.

Answer 7

It does take care of us all, if you have a life threatening event, it will be taken care of. And no, we shouldn't be like Great Britain, France and all the other countries where taxes are so high, people "BUY" apartments to live in instead of houses. No thanks.