I say this on every thread but what the sheep seem unwilling to acknowledge is the fact that most of what most American DRs do.... simply does not work. DRs must know this after practicing for a few years without curing hardly any of their patients. But, then again, DRs get some form of kick back from big pharma, and most DRs feel like they are worth $400k a year, whether or not they cure even one patient.
I'm all for any free market solution that offers incremental benefit. Rescinding tax-breaks that prejudicial favor Big Corps, is a great start. Getting healthcare down to Canadian levels is not a goal to be shot for ! That's 1.4 Trillion in annual expenditures, every year. Thats really insane, over-and-above what private services "the rich" have to dole out themselves! The long-term fiscal implications have to be considered. And the answer is, no dice! Notwithstanding a 60 Trillion unfunded future liability for SS and mediaid for the Boomers?! Seriously, where is the money going to come from? The "Green Revolution"?!
This is clearly not true, or they would not have to be written into a Constitution or subsequent ammendments. Especially in a Constitution that starts with one of the greatest Socialist lines ever: "We the People". This is also clearly not true in any meaningful sense of the word "rights". Those rights do not exist at all unless the government allows them to exist, or unless you take them for yourself by force. That's a rather bizarre statement. It would be rather difficult to run a civil society if it couldn't. All "inalienable" rights in the US were, in fact, granted by the government of the time, and preserved (to the extent they have been preserved) by successive governments. The only truly inalienable right you have - the one that cannot be taken from you - is the right to struggle or fight. Everything else is given to by society and you get to enjoy it only as long as society decides you can, or the extent you are willing to fight against a society that has decided you can't.
Same cite as for angrycat: Snapshots: Health Care - Kaiser Family Foundation As far as I can see, the cost cited for Canada is all-in, and a lot lower than for the US. Am I mistaken?
Hey Corky. I missed ya. Heard you couldn't hack it and moved to Canada?? Yea, you're right about factoring current expenditures. Half of all American spending on healthcare is paid for by Government. Total spending on health care is 2.2 Trillion. So the Gov' pays 1.1 Trillion and the shortfall of 300 Billion - using the Canadian benchmark of 10% of GDP - would cover the remaining....... XX million Americans??? Good 'ol wikipedia says 81 Million Americans are covered by Government spending. So the US Goverment spends 1.1 Trillion per 81 Million Americans. THEREFORE, the US Government would have to cover an additional 219 MILLION citizens, at an additional cost of 2.9 TRILLION dollars (219/81 x 1.1 Trillion), at current expenditure levels. So the question becomes, how many additional people EXACTLY does the Bill purpose to Cover, over-and-above those who are covered already by Government? Everyone? Most? Thanks for proving my point, btw. Its much worse than I thought.
achilles28: That number would be derived from insurance programs that cover the old (Medicare) or the poor (Medicaid) or soldiers and veterans. That's three groups that would use health care in a very expensive way, the old and the military for pretty obvious reasons, and the poor because they don't get regular checkups that would stop stuff from turning into expensive conditions later. Extrapolating from that to the general population wouldn't really be valid. It also wouldn't take in cost savings from things like the one I highlighted earlier.
Medicare approach extended to all Americans would be an incredible disaster. This should be avoided at all costs, unless the intent is to "make it break ASAP". That said, Medicare expenses are heavily biased towards the most expensive segment of the population. Extrapolating that expense to the population at large is not a valid argument. The rough breakdown is that the over-65 crowd costs on average 4x what an under-65 adult costs. In addition, your argument further falls apart as the Medicare model is not the Canadian model.