gonegolfin
Member
Right ... Fannie Mae was just a bang-up idea.The best economic times come when everyone shares in the great wealth of this nation. That happened after FDR and continued ...
Brian
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Right ... Fannie Mae was just a bang-up idea.The best economic times come when everyone shares in the great wealth of this nation. That happened after FDR and continued ...
So a quarter of all our healthcare dollars go toward covering 14% of the population, wow! This is typical liberalism, mandate massive spending on a select few, while the masses go bankrupt.
When something is bleeding you dry, you fix it, Reform does not mean and end to SS it means REFORM!!
It could go one way or the other, really. If "Reform" means 'allow the magic of the market to take care of it', it basicall means 'end' it. It's "SOCIAL" security for a reason. If you've ever taken an economics class, what you see in the most elementary levels is a graph that's just shaped like an "X" with one line being demand and the other being supply. The reason why that doesn't work with national healthcare is that it doesn't guarantee universal coverage, because where those two lines meet (the center of the X), is the point where a firm makes just the right amount of product at the right price so that enough customers buy the product without the firm incurring a loss, regardless of those that fall below the line. In other words, if the health care industry could make more money by catering to 10% of the population by having the price be high enough so that that 10% can pay exorbitant amounts for it and make firms a bigger profit than by lowering the price to a level where 100% could get it, they would do it without so much as a hesitant second. But Health Care isn't an ordinary product: it should be considered the RIGHT of a citizen. Right? We can all agree that Health Care for all would be an essential component of any functioning system? That income shouldn't be the determinant on a basic necessity? That someone with no health care coverage is at a huge disadvantage and enormous risk? That there's a reason why virtually every single country that CAN has established a national health care system that at least aims to cover all citizens? The reason why a government-run system is beneficial is BECAUSE it can operate at a loss/ doesn't focus on MAXIMIZING profits, because the profit is healthy population. It shouldn't and doesn't have to operate at a loss if constructed properly, but it won't cut out 40 million people because it becomes 'unprofitable'. And it doesn't mean there can't be private insurers or doctors, either.
2 questions
1 - How much will universal health care in the US cost on a yearly basis?
(I have been reading a lot about European Countries being confronted with Mounting costs, that only promise to Rise and Rise and Rise, and threaten to bury them in Debt.)
2 - What do you have to say about all the people who are forced to come here from Nations with National Health care systems and pay out of pocket for procedure, and operations, and diagnosis of things, Because Waiting in long lines is not an option.
1 - Not entirely sure, but why would the cost be THAT much different than in any other industrialized country? Sure, the US is way larger population and extension, by by the same token, it has more money. I'm not sure how easy it is to get impartial figures but I found this on a quick google search:
http://www.amsa.org/uhc/CaseForUHC.pdf
And it says that the Institute of Medicine estimates $34-$69 billion dollars a year. But there might be other WILDLY differing figures. It's a good report, though, if you want to know the "pro" side. It's good to know, even if you disagree with the whole idea.
And it is true, health care costs mount up, but it's health care. Defense costs are mounting, and giving nothing in return to the economy. Health Care is an investment. There is also something else that everywhere (Europe, the former East Bloc, and Japan) are all facing, which is the fact that the population is growing at a glacial pace or actually shrinking, which actually has horrible consequences. Thankfully, the US is still safe from that with a pretty healthy age pyramid and growth rates (and you can partly thank those HATED illegals- immigration accounts for 40% of population growth in the US, and population growth is an essential component of sustained economic growth).
2 - Well, the rich can do what they will. Nobody disputes that the US has some of the most fantastic DOCTORS and equipment, but also expensive ones. What good does it do for the US if rich foreigners can come in for luxury care while more than 40 million Americans can't? The US has some of the most advanced technology in almost every field, medicine not being an exception to that, and now with the dollar going down even more foreigners could reap the benefits, but not your citizens. Besides, those foreigners coming in, what percentage of those countries populations do that anyway? It's a tiny percentage compared to those that stay in theri country and recieve medical attention. Not to mention that one of the huge benefits of having health insurance is the preventive value it brings, which can do wonders for cutting costs in the future. Preventive medicine is key, and it is totally off-limits if you have no health insurance. Obviously no system is perfect, but a Health Care SYSTEM would have a lot to do with coverage. Just take examples in the third world: places, even REALLY poor ones, that have invested in even basic universal coverage have seen gigantic leaps their standards of living. A case that always gets used as an example is the the state of Kerala in India.
1 - Not entirely sure, but why would the cost be THAT much different than in any other industrialized country? Sure, the US is way larger population and extension, by by the same token, it has more money. I'm not sure how easy it is to get impartial figures but I found this on a quick google search:
http://www.amsa.org/uhc/CaseForUHC.pdf
And it says that the Institute of Medicine estimates $34-$69 billion dollars a year. But there might be other WILDLY differing figures. It's a good report, though, if you want to know the "pro" side. It's good to know, even if you disagree with the whole idea.
And it is true, health care costs mount up, but it's health care. Defense costs are mounting, and giving nothing in return to the economy. Health Care is an investment. There is also something else that everywhere (Europe, the former East Bloc, and Japan) are all facing, which is the fact that the population is growing at a glacial pace or actually shrinking, which actually has horrible consequences. Thankfully, the US is still safe from that with a pretty healthy age pyramid and growth rates (and you can partly thank those HATED illegals- immigration accounts for 40% of population growth in the US, and population growth is an essential component of sustained economic growth).
2 - Well, the rich can do what they will. Nobody disputes that the US has some of the most fantastic DOCTORS and equipment, but also expensive ones. What good does it do for the US if rich foreigners can come in for luxury care while more than 40 million Americans can't? The US has some of the most advanced technology in almost every field, medicine not being an exception to that, and now with the dollar going down even more foreigners could reap the benefits, but not your citizens. Besides, those foreigners coming in, what percentage of those countries populations do that anyway? It's a tiny percentage compared to those that stay in theri country and recieve medical attention. Not to mention that one of the huge benefits of having health insurance is the preventive value it brings, which can do wonders for cutting costs in the future. Preventive medicine is key, and it is totally off-limits if you have no health insurance. Obviously no system is perfect, but a Health Care SYSTEM would have a lot to do with coverage. Just take examples in the third world: places, even REALLY poor ones, that have invested in even basic universal coverage have seen gigantic leaps their standards of living. A case that always gets used as an example is the the state of Kerala in India.
Where do you get the notion that the US has more money?
World Bank said:Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
World 53,640,000
European Union 16,370,000
1 United States 13,790,000
2 Japan 4,346,000
3 China (PRC) 3,299,000
4 Germany 3,259,000
5 United Kingdom 2,773,000
6 France 2,515,000
7 Italy 2,068,000
8 Spain 1,415,000
9 Canada 1,406,000
10 Brazil 1,314,000
CIA World Factbook said:Rank Country GDP - per capita (PPP) Date of Information
1 Qatar $ 80,900 2007 est.
2 Luxembourg $ 80,500 2007 est.
3 Bermuda $ 69,900 2004 est.
4 Jersey $ 57,000 2005 est.
5 Malta $ 53,400 2007 est.
6 Norway $ 53,000 2007 est.
7 Brunei $ 51,000 2007 est.
8 Singapore $ 49,700 2007 est.
9 Cyprus $ 46,900 2007 est.
10 United States $ 45,800 2007 est.
11 Guernsey $ 44,600 2005
12 Cayman Islands $ 43,800 2004 est.
13 Ireland $ 43,100 2007 est.
14 Hong Kong $ 42,000 2007 est.
15 Switzerland $ 41,100 2007 est.
16 Kuwait $ 39,300 2007 est.
17 Andorra $ 38,800 2005
18 Iceland $ 38,800 2007 est.
19 Netherlands $ 38,500 2007 est.
20 British Virgin Islands $ 38,500 2004 est.
Errr, because the US is the richest country in the world? 0_o'
List of countries by GDP (nominal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
[Notice how no big Euro country or Japan is on that top 20 even]
Err, It'd take me a pretty damn long time to go find all of those countries' debts and substract them from their GDP. Almost every big industrial country has a huge debt.
What was missing from Mr. Kudlow's analysis was the fact that the national debt grew by $1.9 trillion over the period of that $2.2 trillion GDP growth. Traditionally, we subtract debt when calculating net worth and growth (Can you imagine saying to your spouse, "Honey, we grew our income by $50,000 with that loan we took out!"). So if we do that, we discover that the actual growth minus debt for the period was about $300 billion.
1 - Not entirely sure, but why would the cost be THAT much different than in any other industrialized country? Sure, the US is way larger population and extension, by by the same token, it has more money. I'm not sure how easy it is to get impartial figures but I found this on a quick google search:
http://www.amsa.org/uhc/CaseForUHC.pdf
And it says that the Institute of Medicine estimates $34-$69 billion dollars a year. But there might be other WILDLY differing figures. It's a good report, though, if you want to know the "pro" side. It's good to know, even if you disagree with the whole idea.
Well, the problem with calculating like that is that you're using your own cost of health insurance and multiplying it. I can't tell for sure, but I'm almost 100% certain that you'd be paying significantly less than $4000 a year in a universal system.
Frankly those numbers sound very low to me, Even assuming we only cover the 40 million uninsured today. It costs me almost 4000 dollars a year just for to insure my family. Times that by 40 million and you get at least 160 Billion. and we all know it would most likely cost much more than 4000 per person per year. I mean for gods sake one round of chemo cost my dads insurance 21,000 dollars, followed by an 11,000 dollar shot the next day.
I tend to think the real cost would be closer to a trillion dollars a year or more. I also think those costs would do nothing but go endlessly up.
Not to mention that I tend to think Socialized medicine ends up trading quality for quantity.
Don't get me wrong I know we have to do something, but I sure do not want some Universal health care system that puts all 300,000,000 million of us into it. The costs of that would be so high, I do not even want to think about it. It could only translate into a MASSIVE increase in Taxes across the board. As well as lower quality of care, and long waits to get that care. IMO anyways.