If we had a capitalist health care system life expectancy would probably be 100-110.

[Contumacious]

If we want to see firsthand what a government health care system looks like, visit a VA Hospital.
All the employees, from the receptionist to the physicians to the pharmacists are Government employees. The physicians get paid the same if they see 2 patients a day or 50.

Corruption is rampant.

Absolutely Correct.

Now boys and girls, you say "capitalist" healthcare system when you should mean a "free market" health care system.

The capitalist" /"free market" .... they are coterminous

The evil profit motive!

Yep. Thanks to the government schools.

 

[kiwiman127]

If we want to see firsthand what a government health care system looks like, visit a VA Hospital.
All the employees, from the receptionist to the physicians to the pharmacists are Government employees. The physicians get paid the same if they see 2 patients a day or 50.

Corruption is rampant.

Now boys and girls, you say "capitalist" healthcare system when you should mean a "free market" health care system.
The evil profit motive!
As an example, how many MRI machines are in Canada with it's state run system? What is the wait time to get to one, and how far must they travel?
But here in the US, there are private imaging centers popping up all over. And they charge LESS than the hospitals. Some charge less than HALF. They wouldn't do that if there wasn't a profit in it.

Oh, and just to let you know, New York State has more MRI machines than all of Canada. I live in rural Vermont. I had to have an MRI done last month. I was seen within 36 hours from the time the appointment was made. But I did have to travel all of a half hour to the hospital.

We need to overhaul the entire health insurance system, top to bottom. And in doing so we must touch the third rail of the Democrat party... the LAWYERS! Anybody notice how the lawyers successfully lobbied to not be included in any Ostupidcare reforms?

Our next President should task Dr Ben Carson with overseeing healthcare reform from the top down.
One way is to have all hospitals have a fee schedule for procedures. Some hospitals charge 3 times as much as others for the same thing. But as long as somebody else (insurance) is paying, so what? Right?

Doesn't Dr Carlson want all insurance companies to be non-profit as part of his plan to lower costs?
Actually, I like that idea. His reasoning is quite sound for that concept.

 

[kiwiman127]

Well, eddie is back. Welcome there, I guess.

The following is much more accurate: a truly capitalist health care system would result in a possible expectation of living to be 56-66.

What an imbecile. That aver lifespan increased from 56-66 under a capitalists healthcare system. It increased every year under capitalism.

Regarding life expectancy, the United States ranks 35th in the world. 1 through 34 have socialistic healthcare systems.
List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[bripat9643]

There is, and never has been a capitalist health care system. Until ACA was passed, about 20 mega health insurance companies controlled the system. Company's like Humana, Healthnet, Blue Cross, United Health, Prudential, etc. Even the AMA could no longer come up against them. Between these companies and big pharmacy, they had everyone in this nation by the balls.

Even ACA is timid about confronting that cartel. Big pharm still has a law on the books forbidding the USA to bargain with them over the price of Medicare Drugs, and the insurance companies still get all the business in the USA, with no single payer plan as competition. All we did was to fight back just a little, by giving them the promise of having the entire population of America as a market, in exchange for playing by our rules. They jumped on it. Knowing that this was going to make health care companies even richer, I jumped on it, too, and my mutual fund health care stock that I bought for $5,000 right before Obama was elected, is now worth $14,000 and still climbing.

Your theory that having 20 corporations competing against each other isn't capitalism is utterly hilarious. Furthermore, you're ignoring the fact that each state excludes insurance companies from outside the state from providing products to state residents.

Apparently, "having us by the balls" means we had to pay what insurance costs. You're whining because insurance companies aren't charities. Hey, life sucks, and then you die. In this world you don't get anything for free. And if some politician is promising you something for free, you can count on the fact that he's really bending you over.

 

[bripat9643]

That's pretty retarded there, if we had an entirely pay-or-die system the life expectancy of medical professionals would be about five seconds after they turned away someone's dying child.

We had that system right up to the time that Medicare was created. No children were turned away because they couldn't pay, and people were not dying on the streets. Medical rates were reasonable, insurance costs were reasonable, and this country prospered. Most hospitals were community or church sponsored, and rich people contributed considerably to the cause, and or course, to get their names on one or more of the buildings.

I imagine that some child, somewhere, was refused medical care because they couldn't pay, but that was definitely not the norm in the USA.

Medicare screwed up our medical care system. Not because it was not a good idea, but because it was run by dumbasses who didn't have any concept of what they were doing. Unlimited amounts of government money sponsored corruption throughout the system, and drove up costs tremendously. Medicaid finished the job, and now we need a new government program to fix the mess created by the existing government programs.

There are more problems caused by profit seeking than anything. We have not produced a cure for anything in a long time because the drug companies concentrate on drug therapies that require you to take a drug for the rest of your life. To contrast, antibiotics were developed by US and British scientists who worked for their governments and gave away the patents for penicillin to the world for free.

ROFL! Hardly. Government causes almost all the humanely solvable problems in the world. The profit motive has solved most of the major problems in the world. It solved poverty. It solved hunger. It solved transportation. It solved communication. It solved child labor. It solved numerous diseases and medical issues. It's hard to think of a problem that has been solved that profit making business isn't responsible for eliminating.

BTE, Alexander Fleming worked at St Mary's hospital when he discovered penicillin. The government had nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin

Fleming recounted that the date of his discovery of penicillin was on the morning of Friday, September 28, 1928.[25] It was a fortuitous accident: in his laboratory in the basement of St. Mary's Hospital in London (now part of Imperial College), Fleming noticed a Petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture he mistakenly left open, was contaminated by blue-green mould, which formed a visible growth. There was a halo of inhibited bacterial growth around the mould. Fleming concluded the mould released a substance that repressed the growth and lysing the bacteria. He grew a pure culture and discovered it was a Penicillium mould, now known to be Penicillium notatum

 

[bripat9643]

Well, eddie is back. Welcome there, I guess.

The following is much more accurate: a truly capitalist health care system would result in a possible expectation of living to be 56-66.

What an imbecile. That aver lifespan increased from 56-66 under a capitalists healthcare system. It increased every year under capitalism.

Regarding life expectancy, the United States ranks 35th in the world. 1 through 34 have socialistic healthcare systems.
List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's because Americans are the fattest people in the world. Our life expectancy is a lifestyle issue, not a healthcare issue.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Well, eddie is back. Welcome there, I guess.

The following is much more accurate: a truly capitalist health care system would result in a possible expectation of living to be 56-66.

And where is your evidence of that claim, Jake?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

what evidence?? The USSR, for example, did not produce one single consumer innovation during its existence! Do you know why?

Where is the evidence we would be living to triple digits?

capitalism invents goods and services at a rate 100,000 times faster than lib communism

So in other words, nothing more than your own speculation. Thanks

 

[bripat9643]

We don't have a capitalist health care system today because liberals lack the IQ to understand capitalism. Should we hold liberals responsible for taking 20 years off everyone's life??

Why don't you explain for the class exactly what you think a "capitalist health care system" would be?

very simple. The government wouldn't be involved in any way.

 

[Vandalshandle]

There is, and never has been a capitalist health care system. Until ACA was passed, about 20 mega health insurance companies controlled the system. Company's like Humana, Healthnet, Blue Cross, United Health, Prudential, etc. Even the AMA could no longer come up against them. Between these companies and big pharmacy, they had everyone in this nation by the balls.

Even ACA is timid about confronting that cartel. Big pharm still has a law on the books forbidding the USA to bargain with them over the price of Medicare Drugs, and the insurance companies still get all the business in the USA, with no single payer plan as competition. All we did was to fight back just a little, by giving them the promise of having the entire population of America as a market, in exchange for playing by our rules. They jumped on it. Knowing that this was going to make health care companies even richer, I jumped on it, too, and my mutual fund health care stock that I bought for $5,000 right before Obama was elected, is now worth $14,000 and still climbing.

Your theory that having 20 corporations competing against each other isn't capitalism is utterly hilarious. Furthermore, you're ignoring the fact that each state excludes insurance companies from outside the state from providing products to state residents.
Apparently, "having us by the balls" means we had to pay what insurance costs. You're whining because insurance companies aren't charities. Hey, life sucks, and then you die. In this world you don't get anything for free. And if some politician is promising you something for free, you can count on the fact that he's really bending you over.

Totally false, son. As VP of compliance, it was my job to get approval to sell insurance in every state of the union. This task involved filing a few forms and getting the state's approval of the polices. No big deal.

Oh, and I am not whining about anything, kiddo. We got ACA passed, forbidding insurers from excluding applicants for pre-existing health conditions, and the insurance companies are making out like bandits, which is why my stock has almost tripled in value.

 

[reconmark]

If we had a capitalist health care system life expectancy would probably be 100-110.

Based on what evidence?

Do you even realize what you just did to his exercise in lunacy???

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

If we had a capitalist health care system life expectancy would probably be 100-110.

Based on what evidence?

Do you even realize what you just did to his exercise in lunacy???

capitalism is hardly lunacy. It just eliminated 40% of world poverty in China. It seems simple to understand but oddly it is well over a liberal's head. Instead of 50 million slowly starving to death under liberalism now you have 50 million buying cars. Why isn't liberalism illegal as our Founders intended?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Totally false, son. As VP of compliance, it was my job to get approval to sell insurance in every state of the union. This task involved filing a few forms and getting the state's approval of the polices. No big deal.

liberals made interstate competition illegal because they lack the IQ to understand capitalist competition.

Imagine someone who jogs for fun and someone who races in life and death competition? Who would be a faster runner? Now you understand competion and how it makes us better. Not so hard was it?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Where is the evidence we would be living to triple digits?

capitalism invents goods and services at a rate 100,000 times faster than lib communism

So in other words, nothing more than your own speculation. Thanks

Its speculation that the USA invented a million more new goods and services than the USSR??

 

[Vermonter]

Let's say you have just tied the hands of the lawyers, what's to keep malpractice from exploding? Nothing that's what, because that's the only solution anyone ever hears from republicans with zero concern for families of patients who just lost their main breadwinner because he just got a massive overdose of heparin and hemorrhaged to death.

No, we merely make it so the loser pays the costs of the winner in the suit. You would be amazed at the number of frivolous suits that are tossed out every day. Then only the real malpractice suits like the one you stated will be heard.

The physician has to pay the first $500 to $1,000 to defend every lawsuit, no matter if it's frivolous or not. They pay tens of thousands of dollars for malpractice insurance too. All those costs are passed along to the patient, which is passed along to the insurer, who passes it along to the policy holder in the form of a higher premium. If someone files a malpractice suit and it's tossed or he loses, the plaintiff is required to pay all the costs of defense, including that initial $500-$1000 the physician had to take out of his pocket. This would place a major crimp in the malpractice lottery.

It's like taxes. No company actually pays taxes, they just pass them along to the consumer in the form of higher prices. It's estimated that 20% of the price of everything we buy are taxes for every stage of production.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Let's say you have just tied the hands of the lawyers, what's to keep malpractice from exploding?

capitalism weeds out bad goods and services. That's how we got from the stone age to here.
Do you understand now?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Let's say you have just tied the hands of the lawyers, what's to keep malpractice from exploding?

capitalism weeds out bad goods and services. That's how we got from the stone age to here.
Do you understand now?

Really? It didn't 'weed out' slavery, child labor, dangerous workplaces, pollution, etc.

That took government. Capitalism without government control produces every evil known to man, if that evil can be made profitable.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Let's say you have just tied the hands of the lawyers, what's to keep malpractice from exploding?

capitalism weeds out bad goods and services. That's how we got from the stone age to here.
Do you understand now?

Nonsense.

Post-Lochner regulatory policy enacted in accordance with the Commerce Clause contributed to prosperity.

A pragmatic blend of public and private sectors has proven to be the best recourse, as the 'natural regulators' of the free market system are too weak and inadequate to comprehensively address potential corporate abuse of employees and consumers in industrialized 21st Century societies.

The GM ignition switch debacle is proof of the contempt corporate entities have for the safety and well-being of consumers, and justifies the continued need for government regulatory oversight.

The premise of your thread is naïve, reactionary, and wrong.

As for:

If we had a capitalist health care system life expectancy would probably be 100-110.

Perhaps for the wealthiest one percent of the population, as likely already correctly noted.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Capitalism without government control produces every evil known to man, if that evil can be made profitable.

this is really simple, if people don't buy evil, capitalism would have no reason to produce it.

Do you understand now?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

If we had a capitalist health care system life expectancy would probably be 100-110.

Perhaps for the wealthiest one percent of the population, as likely already correctly noted.

not for the 1%. Don't forget that under capitalism prices would be about 20% of what they are now so everyone could afford health care