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[Micro102]

I didn't say it will collapse into rubble. I said it would increase the deficit. It also reduces quality of care. However, it's a fact that those countries' healthcare systems are heavily subsidized by the US.

You said, and I quote:

- "How are you going to do this without collapsing the stock market, eliminating people's retirement savings, and devastating the economy? "

-"when people are poor, starving, and dying because of your policies"

You did not just say it would increase the deficit. You are saying that universal healthcare, something that just about every other country in the world has, would collapse the economy, drain all our life savings, and make everyone poor, starving, and dying.... You are doomsaying in a ridiculous matter and I can't take you seriously.

You're talking about just insurance companies? Bro, that's peanuts. It's a meaningless amount of money.
But since you were talking about taxing those CEOs, if you're ending health insurance, you're not getting any tax dollars from them, so how are you breaking even again? And remind me, what happens to all the people who work for those insurance companies? Do they just politely evaporate?

This is what I mean about projecting about not knowing anything about the economy. If you give a rich person $1000 dollars, it get's stored away. If you give a poor person $1000, it gets spent instantly. You aren't taxing the money in Panama. And I edited my previous comment, but I'll repeat it. The people who tracked who got what healthcare and how much the hospital needs to be compensated for it, still need to do that. It's the CEOs that will disappear. And some extra things like all the individual lawyers, but their jobs don't outweigh the burden that will be lifted from everyone else's shoulders. They can get other jobs.

I've seen them, but it sounds like, like a lot of people, you didn't understand them, lol. Probably got your interpretation from a Voxsplainer.

And here we go again. Meaningless assertions. Someone gives you a clear example or explanation and you just go "Nu-uh!" and pretend that you are right by default. Not even attempting to explain anything. Because you don't have an explanation.

The scale of the US public debt is over thirty trillion dollars. The scale of the deficit is one and a half trillion dollars a year. There aren't enough tax havens in the world to fix that.

No one said that removing some CEOs money from some tax havens would fix the entire US deficit. It would simply keep more money in the US, circulating harder, which would decrease the deficit, because people spending money means taxes. And you know this. You already pretended that you were just arguing about decreasing the deficit, but when it comes to my arguments, O well suddenly they need to fix the entire deficit.... It's just so blatantly dishonest.

[McTraveller]

Cash is king, but barter is ace: you do not need money to make a purchase. But with nothing to buy or trade, money is useless.

Anyway, I want to fix health care prices by increasing supply of health care workers and breaking monopolies, not by having the biggest bureaucracy in the room declare the prices for services. Prices before procedures should also be available, none of this “oh we fixed your arm, by the way it’s $5000, sorry we just get to charge that and oh you didn’t know to pick the other urgent care center next door because we don’t share our prices.”

I want health insurance to be de-coupled from general health: health insurance should only be for catastrophe, not for chronic or routine care.  Chronic care should be like social security disability, and routine care should be like car maintenance - including published prices.

EDIT: oh by the way, that's a myth that rich people just hoard their cash and it doesn't do anything. The super rich have very little cash. They own shares and buildings and yachts and art. Their money is absolutely circulating in the economy - that's the trick, see; to be really rich, you don't want money at all.  You know why? How much money you have is a measure of how much people owe you. You aren't rich if people owe you a lot - you are rich if you have stuff, and you are even more rich if you own the things that make stuff.

EDIT2: The government shouldn't be the last payer of resort for healthcare. They should be the last provider of resort for healthcare - so they would cover those drunk "uninsured" people hitting each other.  Same way the government is (or was) the last researcher of resort - they would spend money on things that are not clearly profitable in dollar terms, but are highly profitable in societal terms.  I would wager you can have government-employed doctors, earning a generous two or three times the average per-capita annual wage, and it would cost less overall than if the government just tried to single-pay everyone for that "catastrophic" care.

The system we have now is broken - because there is only so much demand for care, and there are so many barriers to entry to being a provider, the supply is low and the price is high. We could easily have a system where the supply is higher and the prices are lower, for the same number of patients. And probably lower societal cost, because the cheaper health care is, the more people get routine care, eliminating many of the chronic costs.

[jipehog]

Oh look, a wikipedia article on Single-payer healthcare!

Did you read the USA entry Is there any study that shows that Single-payer healthcare in USA will increase cost as a counter ?

[Maximum Spin]

The scale of the US public debt is over thirty trillion dollars. The scale of the deficit is one and a half trillion dollars a year.

Which only really matters... all of the sudden, when we need to make up a reason for it to matter.

Neither of us can conceptualize what the real difference between a deficit of 30 trillion and, oh I dunno, 31 trillion.  Neither of us could tell the other what actual impact a deficit of 32 trillion would be on our day-to-day life.  It is a meaningless number.

I mean, I can. It indirectly impacts my finances because of the effects on interest rates, inflation, the stock and bond markets, commodities... It's not my fault if you don't understand those things.

I didn't say it will collapse into rubble. I said it would increase the deficit. It also reduces quality of care. However, it's a fact that those countries' healthcare systems are heavily subsidized by the US.

You said, and I quote:

- "How are you going to do this without collapsing the stock market, eliminating people's retirement savings, and devastating the economy? "

-"when people are poor, starving, and dying because of your policies"

You did not just say it would increase the deficit. You are saying that universal healthcare, something that just about every other country in the world has, would collapse the economy, drain all our life savings, and make everyone poor, starving, and dying.... You are doomsaying in a ridiculous matter and I can't take you seriously.

Bro, you listed three separate policies.
Single-payer healthcare on its own would only mildly impoverish us.

This is what I mean about projecting about not knowing anything about the economy. If you give a rich person $1000 dollars, it get's stored away.

This is the most common stupid misconception among people who don't have money. It gets spent on investments, either directly or via a bank, which means it goes to other people and companies, who then spend it in turn on other things. Poorer people are more likely to stuff money into a mattress. If you don't even know this, what do you know? Anything?

The people who tracked who got what healthcare and how much the hospital needs to be compensated for it, still need to do that.

Do you imagine that you will need all of them? Even though they are currently all spread out across many companies with enormous redundancy? You don't intend to simplify the system at all? In that case, then the government now has to pay all of them just as much if not more than before, so you increase the deficit again.

It's the CEOs that will disappear. And some extra things like all the individual lawyers, but their jobs don't outweigh the burden that will be lifted from everyone else's shoulders. They can get other jobs.

So you want them competing with you for window guy at Wendy's? The net effect of reducing jobs is always either wage suppression if there's room, or unemployment at the margin where you hit minimum wage laws.

And here we go again. Meaningless assertions. Someone gives you a clear example or explanation and you just go "Nu-uh!" and pretend that you are right by default. Not even attempting to explain anything. Because you don't have an explanation.

I literally went on to explain immediately that sentence.

No one said that removing some CEOs money from some tax havens would fix the entire US deficit. It would simply keep more money in the US, circulating harder, which would decrease the deficit, because people spending money means taxes. And you know this. You already pretended that you were just arguing about decreasing the deficit, but when it comes to my arguments, O well suddenly they need to fix the entire deficit.... It's just so blatantly dishonest.

You said that removing money from tax havens... somehow, even though those havens aren't under US jurisdiction in the first place, would allow you to break even on single-payer healthcare. I'm telling you that the amount of money that actually goes into tax havens from the US is peanuts. It's just not a thing, the idea that CEOs in the US hide huge amounts of money is a myth. The actual amount is a rounding error. You will not even notice it.
And the idea of "circulating harder" is the "I pay you $60 for your bucket of shit, you pay me $60 for mine" fallacy again. Yes, the US can extract its cut from both shit buckets, but the net effect of the nonproductive activity is inflationary, so the money it gets is worth less. It's a red queen's race.

Anyway, I want to fix health care prices by increasing supply of health care workers

How? Are you going to pay them more (whether in real terms, or by making training cheaper), or shanghai people into being nurses? What happens when you run out of people with the basic qualifications to be health care workers? Not everyone's cut out for it. Are you sure scraping the bottom of the barrel will be worth it?

[Micro102]

Cash is king, but barter is ace: you do not need money to make a purchase. But with nothing to buy or trade, money is useless.

Anyway, I want to fix health care prices by increasing supply of health care workers and breaking monopolies, not by having the biggest bureaucracy in the room declare the prices for services. Prices before procedures should also be available, none of this “oh we fixed your arm, by the way it’s $5000, sorry we just get to charge that and oh you didn’t know to pick the other urgent care center next door because we don’t share our prices.”

I want health insurance to be de-coupled from general health: health insurance should only be for catastrophe, not for chronic or routine care.  Chronic care should be like social security disability, and routine care should be like car maintenance - including published prices.

That sounds nice but that general healthcare is going to require the biggest bureaucracy in the room declare the prices (or in the case of universal single payer, the taxes that would cover those expenses and negotiating with drug companies), and you are going to have situations where someone with no insurance drunk drives their way into someone else without insurance. Should the latter person just have their life ruined? Nope, they deserve critical emergency care for free for the catastrophe they just faced.

And it doesn't matter how many healthcare workers you pump into a system. Only so many people need to be treated so only so many healthcare workers can exist and be profitable, And if you base this all on what people can afford, it's going to go right back to maximized profits, meaning some people don't get to have healthcare. It has to be mandated by the government in some way, or else people die.

[Maximum Spin]

That sounds nice but that general healthcare is going to require the biggest bureaucracy in the room declare the prices (or in the case of universal single payer, the taxes that would cover those expenses and negotiating with drug companies), and you are going to have situations where someone with no insurance drunk drives their way into someone else without insurance. Should the latter person just have their life ruined? Nope, they deserve critical emergency care for free for the catastrophe they just faced.

Lol, why? What if no doctors wanted to perform that care at any price - would you just enslave some doctors because "it's what I deserve"?

Nobody "deserves" someone else's labor.

[Micro102]

That sounds nice but that general healthcare is going to require the biggest bureaucracy in the room declare the prices (or in the case of universal single payer, the taxes that would cover those expenses and negotiating with drug companies), and you are going to have situations where someone with no insurance drunk drives their way into someone else without insurance. Should the latter person just have their life ruined? Nope, they deserve critical emergency care for free for the catastrophe they just faced.

Lol, why? What if no doctors wanted to perform that care at any price - would you just enslave some doctors because "it's what I deserve"?

Nobody "deserves" someone else's labor.

Dude, I can't argue with you if you aren't going to put any meat behind your claims.

Start by explaining why you think anything I said meant doctors were going to be paid a wage they wouldn't accept.

EDIT: Wait, this looks even weirder than that... "What if no doctors wanted to perform that care at any price"... Are you arguing that every doctor is going to demand millions of dollars infinite money out of nowhere or something? (you did say any price after all)

[Maximum Spin]

Start by explaining why you think anything I said meant doctors were going to be paid a wage they wouldn't accept.

I asked you what would happen if doctors refused outright, at any price. Since you say that uninsured risk-takers "deserve" free health care, how do you square that? Nobody is entitled to the voluntary labor of others.

[Micro102]

Ok that clearly isn't going to happen because they are currently working for a price. I have no interest in your insane hypotheticals.

[Maximum Spin]

Ok that clearly isn't going to happen because they are currently working for a price. I have no interest in your insane hypotheticals.

The point is about the concept of "deserve". Does a Ku Klux Klan member deserve free health care? If the town has only black doctors, do the black doctors have the right to refuse to operate on him?

ETA: If an unvaccinated old man catches COVID, does he have the right to free healthcare? Do nurses have the right to refuse to care for him because they don't want to catch it and take it home to their kids?

[Micro102]

Ah, I see, you were focused on the word "deserve". Thought this was going to be a continuation about the economy argument.

I think that as a core rule, doctors should be prepared to treat every patient, regardless of what they do or think. Their job is to make people live, and any moral objections outside of that medical care should be dealt with systems outside of clinics/hospitals. Like law.

EDIT: And when i said "deserve" I was thinking "well, if I were to be smashed up by a drunk driver, I would want society to take care of me. Therefore it's a good thing for society to take care of innocent people who get smashed up by drunk drivers".

EDIT EDIT:

Since you say that uninsured risk-takers "deserve" free health care

Whoa, wait a minute. I missed this. The person I was responding to gave a hypothetical where only catastrophes requires insurance. Now, anyone can be hit by a drunk driver, and that is a catastrophe. So by "risk takers", that would mean a risk everyone faces all the time. Which means the insurance would basically need to be mandatory, or else you just die/go homeless because of freak chance. And if the insurance is mandatory to live a comfortable life, it just once again becomes "how much can we charge people until a certain poor % of the population just has to die".

[Maximum Spin]

Ah, I see, you were focused on the word "deserve". Thought this was going to be a continuation about the economy argument.

I think that as a core rule, doctors should be prepared to treat every patient, regardless of what they do or think. Their job is to make people live, and any moral objections outside of that medical care should be dealt with systems outside of clinics/hospitals. Like law.

So, to be clear, if a doctor refuses to treat a patient for such a reason, you are good with legally forcing the doctor to do so on pain of license revocation? Because that's what it has to come to, in the end. The law is the recourse.

EDIT: And when i said "deserve" I was thinking "well, if I were to be smashed up by a drunk driver, I would want society to take care of me. Therefore it's a good thing for society to take care of innocent people who get smashed up by drunk drivers".

This seems selfish.

Whoa, wait a minute. I missed this. The person I was responding to gave a hypothetical where only catastrophes requires insurance. Now, anyone can be hit by a drunk driver, and that is a catastrophe. So by "risk takers", that would mean a risk everyone faces all the time. Which means the insurance would basically need to be mandatory, or else you just die/go homeless because of freak chance. And if the insurance is mandatory to live a comfortable life, it just once again becomes "how much can we charge people until a certain poor % of the population just has to die".

Driving is risky, yes. Careening at high speeds in a metal box powered by explosions entails some risk. It is good to be self-aware of this risk.

And no, I don't think insurance should be mandatory. You can choose the level of risk you're comfortable with. What I don't accept is that people should choose a level of risk, and then demand to be subsidized for their choices when it doesn't work out.

[Micro102]

So, to be clear, if a doctor refuses to treat a patient for such a reason, you are good with legally forcing the doctor to do so on pain of license revocation? Because that's what it has to come to, in the end. The law is the recourse.

Yep. Doctors agreed to do a job. The law always ends up being a recourse.

This seems selfish.

It has to. Our genes are selfish, and thus all reciprocity derives from selfishness. Working together brings value greater than the sum of our parts, so we have all evolved to desire cooperation, because it means a better outcome for all of us.

Driving is risky, yes. Careening at high speeds in a metal box powered by explosions entails some risk. It is good to be self-aware of this risk.

And no, I don't think insurance should be mandatory. You can choose the level of risk you're comfortable with. What I don't accept is that people should choose a level of risk, and then demand to be subsidized for their choices when it doesn't work out.

You don't even need to be driving. Sitting in a restaurant? BAM, drunk driver rams the window. To avoid this risk would be to never go outside of a steel cage, and no one wants to do that.

And why do we have to choose a level of risk? Average it out so the unlucky don't just end up losing something. I'm happy with paying more taxes and never getting in an accident, if it means someone else doesn't have their life ruined by chance. Because not everyone can afford insurance.

[McTraveller]

It’s not even a question of deserving it: We have real-world evidence that health care workers have quit/are quitting in large numbers, despite being offered higher wages, because of COVID-related stress. Single payer can’t fix that - you can only fix that by making it easier to be a health care worker (Edit: or paying even higher wages).  That will implicitly have higher supply, lowering prices. Right now even with higher prices supply has dropped, which is the least desirable outcome for society.  Even if they were covered by insurance, if there are no available workers, people will suffer, deserving or no. Single payer still has to pay for enough spare capacity to ensure everyone who needs care, gets it.

The few health workers remaining are doing well though - but if you taxed them more, the calculus would change - how much more would they need to be paid to keep working with higher stress, if they got taxed more? You would never make up the higher cost from their contribution, so you’d have to tax others more to pay for the higher healthcare salaries.

[Maximum Spin]

So, to be clear, if a doctor refuses to treat a patient for such a reason, you are good with legally forcing the doctor to do so on pain of license revocation? Because that's what it has to come to, in the end. The law is the recourse.

Yep. Doctors agreed to do a job. The law always ends up being a recourse.

Doctors agreed to join a career, not become permanent bondsmen. Everyone else can refuse to do a specific job you don't like (say, baking someone a particular cake); even employees can quit, and many doctors are of course self-employed. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of slavery as an economic solution.
More practically, though, regardless of whether you're a fan of it - do you think this will encourage more people to become doctors? Anything that restricts the supply of doctors will drive prices up.

It has to. Our genes are selfish, and thus all reciprocity derives from selfishness. Working together brings value greater than the sum of our parts, so we have all evolved to desire cooperation, because it means a better outcome for all of us.

Speak for yourself.