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[PTTG??]

you're gambling with your money. If you lose with private healthcare you pay a lot upfront, but no matter what happens with nationalized healthcare you pay a moderate amount... forever.

If you lose with private health care, you die. Forever.

Not because you couldn't be treated, not because you were just too old, but because you can't afford it.

[wierd]

That is because in a collectivized healthcare country, a hospital treating a citizen can go "Hey, govt? Yeah, Citizen #2234512 just got a new heart valve installed. Below is an itemized list of all items used in the procedure. Please remit payment. thx, bai."  and get a check, no questions asked.

In the US, it goes more like this: "Hello, FuckemOverGood insurance? Your policy holder #6723421 just got a new heart valve. Here is an itemized list of all items used (that we inflated 50%, because you fuckers never pay what it actually fucking cost us, and we have to keep the lights on) in this procedure. Please remit pay--- what? You only will pay 30% of that-- or nothing at all!?-- I know you have stockholder expectations, but this is a policy holder who has been paying their premiums, and you are obligated to pay- What, you will only pay for the barest, shittiest service possible, and then only with substandard levels of followup care, to make your shareholders happy? (30 minute conversation and argument redacted)--- Ok, fine, we will jilt the patient 60,000$ and you will pay us the 30% of the cost of the procedure, just so you can hold onto the money the state allowed you to extort from the poor guy at penalty of fine or imprisonment. Burn in hell, cock sucker."

[Reelya]

you're gambling with your money. If you lose with private healthcare you pay a lot upfront, but no matter what happens with nationalized healthcare you pay a moderate amount... forever.

... yeah and that "moderate amount" is actually less than the tax money the USA spends on medical care you're not allowed to access.

Private US healthcare is lose/lose. You pay more health-related taxes. Then they say "screw you, pay again" before you get even basic healthcare coverage. Then they bill you again when you go to hospital.

National healthcare works out cheaper in tax dollars than the private system. it's a win-win. They charge a lower tax in Canada, UK, Australia related to healthcare, that covers everyone with basic health care all the way up to major operations, all without co-pays. And you can still pay for private insurance, except they need to make it extra good to make it competitive with the free national coverage. If you get private insurance in Australia they treat you like royalty to make the shit worth paying for. e.g.:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/private-health-insurance-premiums-to-rise-by-nearly-5-per-cent-20170209-gu9p8t.html

Health Minister Greg Hunt signed off on an average premium rise of 4.84 per cent, seeing the top tier of family hospital cover increase to about $4500 annually and singles cover to increase by about $100 to $1250.

The "top tier" private family health insurance plan in Australia costs $4500 a year! (< $US 4000)  That's three fucking weeks of median Australia median fulltime income. If you get personal coverage only, it's less than a typical Australian weekly salary, and it's partly tax deductible as well.

Given that average monthly premiums for a family in the USA are $833 according to google search, that's about $10K a year. The Australian government spends less tax money per person on health, and our most expensive private plans are about half what you pay, because they need to compete with free.

Just comparing private cover, if you're in the USA the govenment spends $3875 per person, then average individual premiums are $321 a month. So you're effectively paying $7727 a year in health care. And the fucking average deductible is $4358. So as I see it, you'd need to spend $12000 on health before your insurance even starts to pay for any. fucking. thing.

Compare that to Australia, state and federal health spending is just under $5000 per capita, and an Australian dollar is worth 75 US cents, so that's actually $3750, so a little less than the tax outlays for the US federal government (and we're probably missing some state spending in the USA). Then, "top tier" private cover in Australia costs another $AU 1250 which is $US 937.5, so you can have the complete package here for $US 4687.5 including all taxes and spending.

[Rolan7]

And this efficiency comes from cutting out the for-profit middleman, as discussed earlier.  Also, long-term, the money saved by offering preventative care instead of only emergency care.

That's one of the saddest parts, how much money we're wasting by forcing people to crawl into the ER at the last second.  It benefits no one, except tangentally the insurance companies.

For-profit can be good for efficiency in some fields, but insurance companies don't actually create anything.  Their profits literally come from either their customers or the hospitals, like Weird was pointing out.  They used to be non-profit, simple risk-sharing systems, and they never should have been allowed to become profit-seeking.

Even the financial services industry serves a purpose by providing capital for good investments (in theory, ha).  This is like that, except the "good investments" are healthy people.  Of course they won't invest in the sick- they have no incentive to.

[smjjames]

We aren't going to see it happen with the Republicans in power as they'd rather just cut taxes and don't think healthcare should be free.

Now I'm wondering how long it took for other countries to design their healthcare systems. It probably wasn't all at once, that's for sure, but still.

[hector13]

you're gambling with your money. If you lose with private healthcare you pay a lot upfront, but no matter what happens with nationalized healthcare you pay a moderate amount... forever.

So... what are insurance premiums if not the moderate amount you pay forever?

Not only that, paying those premiums for the privilege of having to pay your deductible prior to the insurance company paying for you? Premiums that they are using to pay people who will pore over your coverage for any reason possible for them to not pay out for your coverage?

I turned 30 last year, which apparently justified a 65% increase in my monthly premium, and that's without prior existing conditions, non-smoking, and very little drinking. So I pay $500/month to not be covered before spending more money than I actually have at any given time ('cause life just likes to eat away at my savings. Thanks life!) and the potential that I won't actually be covered if something unpleasant does actually happen.

I struggle, mightily, to see how that is a better system than being taxed for the privilege of being treated when I need it, without having to fund said treatment by going into debt even before the insurance company decides whether or not to actually pay for me. /angry Scotsman

In the U.K. I didn't seek treatment for things because I felt I'd be taking resources from someone who needed it more. In the US I don't seek treatment because I'm scared of the bill I'd have to pay for it.

[wierd]

And this efficiency comes from cutting out the for-profit middleman, as discussed earlier.  Also, long-term, the money saved by offering preventative care instead of only emergency care.

That's one of the saddest parts, how much money we're wasting by forcing people to crawl into the ER at the last second.  It benefits no one, except tangentally the insurance companies.

For-profit can be good for efficiency in some fields, but insurance companies don't actually create anything.  Their profits literally come from either their customers or the hospitals, like Weird was pointing out.  They used to be non-profit, simple risk-sharing systems, and they never should have been allowed to become profit-seeking.

Even the financial services industry serves a purpose by providing capital for good investments (in theory, ha).  This is like that, except the "good investments" are healthy people.  Of course they won't invest in the sick- they have no incentive to.

Which is exactly why the ACA was not a good solution: It bent over backwards to keep the insurers in the game. Ideally, it should have aimed to remove them from the game completely.

[Folly]

Trump accuses Amazon of not paying their 'internet tax'
40 months to go, and Trump starts holding fundraisers for his re-election campaign.

Has anyone started a timeline yet, chronicling all the stupid shit Trump has said and done?

[smjjames]

Trump accuses Amazon of not paying their 'internet tax'
40 months to go, and Trump starts holding fundraisers for his re-election campaign.

Has anyone started a timeline yet, chronicling all the stupid shit Trump has said and done?

I'm sure someone is.

Also, the whole starting campaign fundraising 40 months before the campaigning is supposed to start is just giving him a ridiculous advantage, and gives the whole 'permanent campaign' thing a new meaning, to ridiculous levels.

Hey, I don't care what justification he uses, but if his dislike of the Amazon's (and hopefully eventually Alphabet's and Facebook's) CEO(s) leads him to break apart those companies, that's fine by me.

Popping a monopoly is popping a monopoly, even if the justification is petty dislike for the guy in charge.

Heh, Teddy Roosevelt would take a buzzsaw to the monopolies. Whatever happened to enforcing the anti-monopoly stuff?

[wierd]

Congress critters (and apparently, now presidents) have outstanding financial interests in sustaining large monopoly players for phat wads of cash and cooshy jobs?

Seriously, people like Chris Dodd (You know, got that cooshy gig at the MPAA after being a congress critter?) are the rule, not the exception. (Seriously, why do you think there is so fuck-little earnest progress in charging Herr Trump over his repeated failures to liquidate his holdings and sever his ties to industry?)

[Descan]

Yeah, basically socialized healthcare in most countries is government as insurance, only non-profit, and with the benefit of collective bargaining with hospitals and drug companies. (You want access to these patients? You have to negotiate a price with the *entire government*, not just an insurance company.)

You still get whatever efficiency of private healthcare vis a vis the actual healthcare services, doctors and clinics and hospitals, but without the gouging.

[smjjames]

Congress critters (and apparently, now presidents) have outstanding financial interests in sustaining large monopoly players for phat wads of cash and cooshy jobs?

Seriously, people like Chris Dodd (You know, got that cooshy gig at the MPAA after being a congress critter?) are the rule, not the exception. (Seriously, why do you think there is so fuck-little earnest progress in charging Herr Trump over his repeated failures to liquidate his holdings and sever his ties to industry?)

The Democrats would love to impeach him over it due to the emoluments thing, but mainly it's that you can't charge the President directly like that. Sure the Constitution has the emoluments thing, but they didn't expect (nor would they likely have had the thought) about conflicts of interest on this scale.

Past Presidents have had stuff in businesses, several had plantations, the Bushes were in the oil industry, but none of them had anything on the scale (or period equivalent scale) that Trump does. I'd fully expect reform in that area at some point.

[wierd]

With our current president, the opposite might well be true.

Just waiting for the confused horror reaction should Trump invest heavily in pinatas, shirt pressing operations supplying the liberal left with things like gay pride shirts, and other paraphernalia, and contraceptive prophylactics manufacturers.  California strawberries would also be a big one that would cause much consternation.

Also, investing in Time magazine, the NY Times, and CNN as a poison investor would also be hilarious.

[MrRoboto75]

Now I guess it's a question of whether we can actually get a candidate to run on a monopoly-busting platform.

And whether said platform would actually get people to turn out.

Their campaign would run out of steam early on due to a mysterious lack of funding.

[wierd]

And the lack of television coverage, and the mysterious deletions of their campaign accounts on social media.