Universal Coverage. I read one side can you show me another?

Question

In Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2169454/fr/flyout), there is an article that lauds the brilliance of Sicko but finds several problems with Moore's answer to the problem. Basically it says placing healthcare in government's hands would require pay cuts to doctor's, better handling of malpractice lawsuits, dealing with the price of prescription drugs, and the simple principle of what's free is abused. Can anyone give me good evidence to refute this. Not a debate I just want to see the other side of the coin.

Answer 1

If we place health care in governments hands, we can get rid of the need for paying insurance companies which need to make a profit. 30% of what we pay today goes towards making a profit for the insurance companies, so if we move to universal coverage, we could likely reduce the cost of health care.

Doctors salaries probably would not be significantly affected. Specialists may see their salaries go down a bit, but many of these already make $600k/year. On the other hand, general practitioners could actually see an increase in salaries.

Drugs are cheap to make, but expensive to develop. If we move to universal coverage the government could easily cover the cost of "old drugs" whose patent protection had expired, but new drugs would likely remain expensive.

--- EDIT ---

By the way, there is a myth floating around that the USA has the best health care system in the world. This isn't true, and hasn't been true for many years now.

We used to have the highest life expectancy in the world, but over the last 30 years, even though life expectancy has increased, we have lost our position as highest life expectancy, and now are ranked 29th in the world.

Answer 2

We have two things to consider. One, we have the best health care system in the world. Two it is expensive and not everyone has insurance to cover it.

My position is this. Why destroy the best system in the world when what really needs to be addressed it covering everyone with insurance?

Firstly, we need to know the exact number of Americans who have no coverage and find out why. I don't know for a fact but perhaps billionaires don't need insurance coverage. Some young people can afford insurance but would rather spend their money on other things. Then there are the self-employed that cannot afford coverage on their own but might be able to afford coverage at group rates. Most of these uninsured can be pretty easily rectified.

What number are we left with after collecting all of the low hanging fruit? Truly poor already have Medicaid coverage so what are we left with? A few million? Ten million? Spread out among fifty States it may be possible for State governments to provide their own citizens with affordable coverage by making deals with insurance companies. Mitt Romney has implemented just such a plan in Massachusetts.

There are other ways to limit the cost such as tort reform to lessen the burden of mal-practice insurance on Doctors and Hospitals and reduce the cost of unnecessary tests that are done just so Doctors can CYA.

So we need to make sure we address the correct problem and not throw the baby out with the bathwater by destroying the best health care system in the world.

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Answer 3

Simply put - do you really want the same bureaucracy that gave us the war on drugs, the war on poverty, a "simplified" tax code, 12 million illegal immigrants and "no child left behind" controlling your personal health care?
As far as the premise of the movie "Sicko" - how do you explain all of the Cubans who try to get to America every day in anything that floats? And, even better, why did Cuba find it necessary to import doctors to care for Fidel?
Michael Moore is very good at what he does - but making documentaries is not what he does.
We have the best medical care and facilities in the world - and it's very expensive. Despite what you often hear, it is not a crisis. We need to address concerns and try to remedy them, but we do not need to do this fine tuning with a sludge hammer.

Answer 4

We do have plans like Medicaid for the "working poor" but just being poor doesn't automatically get you on it. My husband is diabetic, was unmedicated for 6 yrs and has complications because of it that has made him disablied, he was turned down for Medicaid not because I made too much money, but based on his health, we have appealed and have been waiting for over 2 months to get an answer, it has been 8 months since he applied, his case worker told me she had seen people die waiting to get on Medicaid. Everyone who pays taxes pays into the system already, yet you jump thru hoops just for a chance to receive the benefits from your paying, in a single payer universal health coverage it doesn't mean we have to give up our insurances, if your insurance is better than what you can get from the universal one and you want to pay for it, go ahead, it will make the insurance companies more competive, and maybe offer to pay for more procedures, while people who otherwise don't have it or can't afford it can still get treatment. Our system is broken on many levels, and yeah I don't think the gov is the best choice to fix it, but we have to do something.

Answer 5

confusing matter. research on to a search engine. that will might help!