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http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/48842/the-2009-health-care-reform-fightI know two families who voluntarily go without health insurance (both small business owners). In at least one of those cases, it's because minimum, bare-bones, emergency-only coverage would be well over $1,000 monthly for just the two of them--both healthy, non-smokers. The price has gotten so insane that to them it's worth the gamble until they're eligible for Medicare several years from now.
But make no mistake, one catastrophic illness would bankrupt them. And I'm going to guess that in that scenario, once the bankruptcy went through and once they got done moving around assets, the hospital would wind up with only a fraction of their bills paid.
That's the hell of this situation; we're never going to be a society that just throws non-payers out on the street to die. Never. So somebody IS going to pay.
I think that's the big stumbling block to this debate. People opposed to universal coverage keep portraying it as a new expense, but they have to understand we're already paying it. Only right now we're doing it using a clumsy, grossly inefficient system that ruins countless families financially (you probably saw the recent news stories that showed 60% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills). And keep in mind, many of those people have insurance. Even the leftover costs are overwhelming when you're talking about a $300k medical bill.
And again, somebody has to pay what doesn't get paid. That's why we're required to carry auto insurance. It's not for us, it's for the costs you can create for other people.
So let's start with that premise - that 1) we are not going to deny care and 2) someone will wind up paying anyway. And let's look at the most efficient ways to handle that. Surely the fact that every other developed country but us does it should give us plenty of guidance in terms of how to execute it.
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Now, most other world reports cite the US as one of the highest priced healthcare systems (coming in at somewhere over $6,000 per capita). That's more than double Canada and others.
YES. Yes.
Everyone stop and read that.
With their "huge bureacracy" and "wasteful government" and "massive taxes"...
THEY STILL PAY FREAKING HALF OF WHAT WE PAY. THEIR SYSTEM IS TWICE AS EFFICIENT AS OUR PRIVATE ONE. TWICE.
This is key. This is the trump card in the discussion. Whatever inefficiencies a bloated government introduces, our system where the insurance companies act as a middle man at the cost of billions is twice as inefficient. We're paying twice as much and by no measure is the care better. None. Not in life expectancy, patient satisfaction, anything.
Twice as much. For an inferior product. What is there left to discuss? Where is the awesome efficiency of the free market?
The answer is, of course, that the things that normally make the free market efficient will NEVER work in the field of health care.
You don't get to shop for health care the way you do for cars because there are too many mitigating factors; the fact that you get stuck with the health insurance your employer offers, the fact that you are stuck going to whatever hospital and specialist is nearest to you, the fact that in an emergency you have no choice at all.
You will never, EVER have the kind of perfect, free competition that drives down the prices and drives up the quality of TVs and other consumer goods. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way it is.
Also, in most industries, the priciest services go to the rich clients who are most able to pay. In health care, it's the opposite. The biggest customers are by definition the ones least able to pay, the 8 year-old with a chronic health problem, or an 80 year old who hasn't had an income in a decade.
That is where the vast majority of the services go, to the sickest among us, to the ones least likely to have the hundred of thousands of dollars to cover it. I may break my ankle and rack up a $15,000 hospital bill. But that's not a drop in the bucket compared to something like end-stage renal disease, where dialysis and other treatments will rack up will over half a million dollars.
It will NEVER be profitable to care for those people. Thus, the free market will never have an answer outside of, "let them die." That's why less regulation doesn't help you; all less regulation means here is "the right to cut loose the frequently sick."
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Topic: This American Health Debate thing (Read 12740 times)