Does an insurance model work for healthcare?

[The Rabbi]

FYI, Rab...

Your claim that no studies suggest that single universal health care insurance would save money is completely UNTRUE.

Whether you make this claim out of sheer ignorance, or simply because you are mendacious is, of course, something only you can say.

But you, per usual, when it comes to pretty much everything having to do with real world economics, are totally wrong

[blather]

Instead of just making shit up, lad, perhaps you ought to actually TRY to learn something

I suggest you start here

Physicians for a National Health Program[/SIZE]

Hey dumbshit. Worst post of the day.
For starters I did not say universal health care would save money. That wasnt the claim. The claim was a universal preventive program would save money. Not the same thng. That has yet to be shown that it would.
Second, making predictions is not the same as a study.
Third, universal health care has proven enormously expensive everywhere it has been tried: Germany, Britain, Mass. No reason to think it will be different here.
Instread of lecturing me you mgith want to go actually read what I wrote first. Then you might want to take a class in logic, since you obviously fail at that. Finally you should soak your head.

 

[auditor0007]

Predictions aren't evidence of anything, ed. How's Mass. doing by the way?

Mass doesn't have single payer. Not even close. And a 'Study,' which is what Rabbi has been clamoring for, is only good for predictions. I don't think a preemptive 'Study' is generally capable of providing proof.

But there are real world studies of other countries that have some form of single payer, like France (though it is more of a hybrid). Unfortunately what one would find there is that its government health care system is running deficits in the billions of dollars.

This is true. At the same time, the single payer systems in countries such as France are costing them about half of what ours does. So, they need to increase their spending a little bit. Their costs would still remain well below ours.

I don't think people really understand how much we are paying for healthcare in this country. One of the main reasons for that is that very few people actually pay all of their healthcare costs. In most cases, people look at their health insurance premium as being the 20% that they pay through their employer. If employers did not provide health insurance and everyone had to pay for it themselves, I think people would be talking a different tune. On top of that, the government cost that we pay in taxes is not included in any private premiums that we pay or out of pocket costs.

Here are some real numbers to take a look at. We are currently spending approximatley 17% of GDP on healthcare. But take a look at this. If you are born today, here are your future healthcare costs in today's dollars. We know that the cost per person is around $8000 per year, so $8000 times 75 years comes to $600,000. Actual life expectancy is a bit higher, but I'm just rounding off. Now, the average income in today's dollars is $50,000. The normal person will work approximately 45 years, so that amounts to lifetime earnings in today's dollars of $2,250,000. The percentage of income that healthcare will cost someone being born today is almost 27% of total earnings. To make matters worse, we know that these costs are only going to rise even more.

Now, these costs are a bit skewed because for most people, they do not pay the entire cost of their healthcare costs, namely insurance premiums. Their employers pay a big chunk in most case, so this reduces the actual amount. However, if you are self-employed, you do pay the full cost. Also, while an employee may not be paying the full cost, the amount paid by the employer is just a benefit that can be equated into earned income. However, that amount still only reduces the total percentage to around 25% of lifetime earnings based on an average insurance premium of about $3000 per year per person.

The bottom line is that we can argue about how to reduce these costs as much as we want. When the younger generations start to actually realize these numbers and what it means to them, they are going to force reductions in cost, even if that means moving to single payer.

Taking a look at the proposed Republican plan to end Medicare and move everything to private insurers, we see how this could definitely cap healthcare costs on the government side, but what will it do on the private side? It will only shift the costs to the private sector, and so far, I have not seen any proof that private insurance can do the job for less. In fact, the opposite seems to be true, so we may be in for a massive tax increase, but it won't be taxes; it'll be an increase in insurance costs. And for those who can't afford it? I guess too bad for them.

 

[auditor0007]

FYI, Rab...

Your claim that no studies suggest that single universal health care insurance would save money is completely UNTRUE.

Whether you make this claim out of sheer ignorance, or simply because you are mendacious is, of course, something only you can say.

But you, per usual, when it comes to pretty much everything having to do with real world economics, are totally wrong

[blather]

Instead of just making shit up, lad, perhaps you ought to actually TRY to learn something

I suggest you start here

Physicians for a National Health Program[/SIZE]

Hey dumbshit. Worst post of the day.
For starters I did not say universal health care would save money. That wasnt the claim. The claim was a universal preventive program would save money. Not the same thng. That has yet to be shown that it would.
Second, making predictions is not the same as a study.
Third, universal health care has proven enormously expensive everywhere it has been tried: Germany, Britain, Mass. No reason to think it will be different here.
Instread of lecturing me you mgith want to go actually read what I wrote first. Then you might want to take a class in logic, since you obviously fail at that. Finally you should soak your head.

Lets change the wording here to what you really mean. Single payer healthcare is the actual term we need to discuss. First of all, Massachusetts does not have single payer healthcare. And if you want to get technical, they don't have universal healthcare either because not every single person is covered. As for costs, single payer may be enormously expensive, but in the countries you mentioned, Germany and Britain, the cost is only a little more than half of our own cost. If you are going to make an argument against single payer, use an argument that you can actually make some points with, such as the service isn't as good and there can be long waiting periods to get treatment. But please don't try to tell us it costs more. That just makes you look really dumb.

 

[Old Rocks]

In some ways it is different. I may suffer a heart attack and die while removing invasive honeysuckle from my yard without costing my insurance comoany anything. Then again I may catch cancer and linger on for a decade of expensive treatment.

Just like auto insurance companies my health insurance company hires actuaries and others to figure out that risk and charge accordingly.

Different than automobiles which keep becoming safer this cheaper healthcare costs keep going up. Darn it, I want that new $100,000 sometimes it works chemo treatment which did not even exist in my grand dad's time for example.

Then we have the problem that unlike in Biblical times we dont lime seeing the sick and diseased on the street waiting dor the son of god to heal them. Hospitals in America more or less must treat the poor.

So I dunno.

Right now, if you are middle class or working poor, once you are treated, if you do not have adaquete insurance, you are poor, more than likely bankrupt. In fact, nearly 75% of those declaring bankruptcy for medical reasons had some insurance, just not enough. No other industrial nation has nearly a million families a year going bankrupt because of medical bills. In fact, most other industrial nations have zero rate of medical bankruptcies.

Ain't America great, those insurance CEO's can get millions to tens of millions every year in bonuses by contributing to the bankruptcy of American families. Just put not covered on the bill of someone that has been paying premiums for a generation.