https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4opFbB6okwo
What do you think of some of these ideas? Sweden seems like a good model to pursue.
NorthHawk wrote:Do you want to be able to live freely without worry that a health problem can bankrupt you or do you want to
live freely knowing that your family will be OK if that health problem occurs?
NorthHawk wrote:As well, it frees up business from having to pay health insurance premiums when competing for high quality workers or in union negotiations.
RiverDog wrote:Not really. Any socialized medicine program will rely heavily on increased taxes on businesses and corporations, most likely on a per employee basis. In addition, there are a lot of people like me that are beneficiaries of a retiree medical program from their former employer that would surely go away under any socialized health plan.
No one has answered my question as to what's going to happen to the balance of power if we were to cut our defense budget to a level of less than 2% GDP like Canada, western Europe, Japan, etc. Do you guys really place that much trust in China and Russia?
RiverDog wrote:No one has answered my question as to what's going to happen to the balance of power if we were to cut our defense budget to a level of less than 2% GDP like Canada, western Europe, Japan, etc. Do you guys really place that much trust in China and Russia?
Aseahawkfan wrote:No. Military competition has always been the great problem of the world. Places like Canada and Sweden can cut their military budges with the United States around and just accept they have very little chance of military resolution to problems or even self-defense if a larger country comes after them. If America were a crueler country, we could take Canada in a short war and control it easily. If we didn't police the world, nations like China and Russia would move unchecked by other nations. China and Russia fear no one but us and we no one but them. That is the great conundrum. Who defends the idea of Democracy throughout the world if no other large nations care about Democracy or freedom?
RiverDog wrote:Ideally we could rely on an organization like the United Nations or NATO. But history has shown that the UN is nothing more than a glorified debating society and managing an army with hundreds of participating countries wouldn't be viable.
So with that, out goes all the comparisons of medical systems in the rest of the western world. They simply aren't viable for a nation like ours. The individual is not going to be able to depend on the government to take care of them, they are going to have to take care of themselves. What a novel concept!
I-5 wrote:Riv, do you think that because of our role as superpower against China/Russia (which I agree with), the current health system we have is the most efficient use of resources, and not worth upsetting? I'm not talking about your particular plan but about overall. At about $10.5k per person annually, healhcare cost in the US is almost double the cost per capita to the next most expensive country, Germany. That has nothing to do with military spending, but about inefficiency. Since socialized medicine is such a dirty word to most (not all) american ears, can the US at least do it better?
RiverDog wrote:Competition is good for health care both in terms of price and quality. But that doesn't mean that I'm not open to some type of regulatory function, above and beyond what is in place today, to help control prices, in particular, drug prices, and some type of enhancement of Medicaid or financial supplement of private plans to make them more affordable.
RiverDog wrote:Competition is good for health care both in terms of price and quality. But that doesn't mean that I'm not open to some type of regulatory function, above and beyond what is in place today, to help control prices, in particular, drug prices, and some type of enhancement of Medicaid or financial supplement of private plans to make them more affordable.
Aseahawkfan wrote:Prove to me there is real competition in the health insurance market. I want to see it. Because I don't see competition. Break down the competitive market for health insurance. Show me how I can make a health insurance company or a medical provider improve their prices through my consumer choice like is normal in a competitive market environment. I want to see your examples.
Because I don't believe health insurance is competitive in the way capitalism intends it to be. I believe it is vastly over-priced and purposely so to ensure the working man doesn't have access to affordable insurance save through an employer.
RiverDog wrote:First off, I cannot "prove" that it is competitive anymore than you can "prove" that it is not. One thing I can tell you is that my experience of having to buy insurance on my own when I retired at age 62 is extremely expensive relative to the premiums I paid as part of the group insurance provided by my employer by at least a factor of 5. One possible interpretation of that fact is that group insurance is a heck of a buy, at least for a 62 year old.
Secondly, I did not say that health insurance is competitive. What I said was that healthy competition is good for health care.
Keep in mind that the cost of your insurance premiums is only one component in the equation. The other component is the quality of health care, which is a little more difficult to quantify. Personally, I am and have been generally satisfied with the quality of health care both me and my wife has had relative to what we have had to pay. I have no desire to change to an unproven, experimental system.
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