Isn't the US health care system the best? Doesn't the individual citizen have the most choices?

Question

1. Pay for health care when it's needed, fee for service.
2. Choose not to pay for health care, and spend the money on fast cars and loose women.
3. Obtain job skills that will result in a great job with health care benefits and a fantastic vacation package.
4. Purchase your own health insurance privately.

Don't you just love the flexibility and versatility provided by this great country?

Answer 1

Well said sir. We as Americans have the best heathcare network on the planet. We have the highest technology, best doctors, and some of the cheapest care that can be found. It's no wonder people are coming to the US for treatment.

Answer 2

thing that sucks though is even if you have a good job, they don't always provide a good plan. sure, they'll cover you for free but if you want to cover one of your kids it'll cost you $500 a month. i hate that decent health coverage is a prerequisite for choosing a job. often i've found myself at a job that blows just so i can go to the dentist or the gyno. the times i haven't had coverage and had to go to the dr for whatever reason, i wanted to cry when i had to throw down the cash to just for the visit and then decide whether or not i should go to the pharmacy and pay another $50-100 for the scrip or just wait it out and hope i get better w/out it. when i was single i didn't really give that much thought to not having insurance since i take pretty good care of myself and seldom need to see a doc, but now i have a kid and i absolutely HAVE to have it, no questions. so i got a better job and problem solved. the last place i worked paid for my coverage in full, but i couldn't add my daughter because then i wouldn't be able to afford her childcare. privatized healthcare doesn't work for everybody. what if you're self-employed? what if you lose your job? i think what you said in #2 is funny "choose not to pay for health are and spend the money on fast cars and loose women." the problem with that statement is that a lot of people, like myself, don't have expendable income to afford private insurance (or cars or women/men). it's either you pay for insurance, or you pay your bills,childcare,car note & insurance, mortgage or rent etc etc. take my fiance for example. he's self employed and makes good money, but can't afford insurance. why? because he has 50k in student loans to pay off and all other living expenses. We live modestly to say the least and what we make collectively is spread thin and we put back what we can in savings. you can say that we have a lot of choices when it comes to healthcare, which we do, but if you don't have the extra income, an education that can land you a good job that will potentially have good benefits, you don't have many choices at all.

edit: college students also get the shaft on insurance too, especially once they are too old to be on their parents' insurance anymore. most of them don't have jobs that qualify them for insurance. some universities offer a type of insurance for students but plop that on top of ever rising tuition costs and student loans, they'll be paying for that insurance even after they graduate.

Answer 3

There are several glaring holes in your neat little categories.

What about the fact that there are fewer and fewer jobs offering any benefits, and more and more workers?

On a related note, what do you say to those who had "great jobs with healthcare benefits and fantastic vacation packages" whose factories closed up and moved to Mexico and Asia? "Too bad, guess it wasn't as good as you thought, but I want a cheaper microwave"?

Fee for service is great, but should treatment for strep throat cost as much as two weeks' groceries, and should a broken arm cost as much as a year's rent? Should those paying cash be charged more than those with insurance? Is there some free market remedy to these questions that I'm just missing?

Answer 4

That's all good for the people who have it but all the people (including children) that don't have it, suffer.

The flexibility is a smoke screen. They give us options, true, but they're all bad options. Even healthy people with good jobs and health benefits get screwed by their heath insurance companies. The industry pays their employees hundreds of thousands of dollars and extra incentives to deny paying customers of surgeries and treatments all the time. Sometimes causing fatalities.

Good reality Checks Answer is true but I don't think you realize the ramifications: They only "can't deny" medical treatment if people go to the emergency room. Do you know who pays for that? The money is not paid out of thin air and certainly not the insurance companies. Subsidies from the government that tax payers pay for reimburse the hospitals. Some of these trips to the ER are by poor mothers who have a child with an ear infection. A regular doctor's visit for an ear infection costs less than 5 times the amount. We are actually paying way more than we have to with the current system.

Answer 5

you have no idea how close we are to losing the luxery of employers supplying healthcare.
it is the single biggest expense (outside of actually employing anyone) that companies are trying to cut down on.

it will soon get to the point where no company will offer healthcare as a benefit.

Then living a healthy life will be a priviledge known only the the people who are wealthy enough to have it.

we will end up at universal healthcare 1 of 3 ways inevitably.

1. Our government agrees to fund healthcare for all.
2. We are all required by law to purchase our own healthcare (which will DRASTICALLY reduce the cost of healt insurance)
3. our current healthcare system will become more and more expensive until finally only the super rich can afford it, and everyone else is living off medicare and medicade (which will end up being way more expensive for the government than choices 1 and 2)

Answer 6

No. The US health care system is ranked very low among industrialized nations. First--it is the most expensive. Second, we have mch higher infant mortality rates than other industrialized countries. We rank 41stt in life expectancy.

In short--when it comes to RESULTS, not hype and right-wing ideological slogans--the US health care system doesn't cut it.

There are alternatives to socialized medicine that would giveus a better health care system--we used to have the best in the world, it provided universal access, and it was largely private.

But getting back to that takes ideas, facts, and solidy policy proposals. What we are getting fromteh right is political rhetoric and excuses. That, also, won't cut it. We're going to end up with government health care--not because there is no alternative, but because conservatives are more interested in moutdhing ideology than in developing and presenting sound ideas.

Answer 7

There is also the fact that if you do need medical treatment they cannot deny anyone that treatment. You may get a fat bill in the mail, but it's much better than being seriously injured permanently.

Answer 8

Being rich is always great, but that is not the problem here. The problem is helping the ones that can't afford it, and avoiding being a cruel fascist country.

Answer 9

Ever consider the poor people who cant afford to pay for that.