Tolan
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Yes. (18% GDP - 10% GDP) / 18% GDP = 44%. We are in agreement.
The data is out there, proven a dozen times over. We could be spending 43% less and everyone could be covered. That's what single payer does.
Health Care Thread
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The data is out there, proven a dozen times over. We could be spending 43% less and everyone could be covered. That's what single payer does.
Xequecal
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You cannot just assume another country's cheaper costs are due to their public option. Germany has functionally identical healthcare to what we have now and they still pay half per capita. Europeans take better care of themselves, that's why they pay less. Insurance is a total red herring. Sanders' proposed costs are nowhere near reality, by the way. Germans pay a payroll tax of 15.5% for their public option, and Sanders thinks he can give Medicare to everyone for 8%? They pay double that with half the costs.8% is about what you need to make Medicare solvent now, without expanding coverage at all.
The hidden non financial costs to public healthcare are usually ridiculous. South Korea and Japan have really cheap healthcare, but that's literally because they encourage their old and sick to off themselves. SK citizens over 65 have a suicide rate over 200/100,000 every year.
Vaclav
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Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries | PBS NewsHourandHealthcare in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediamight be enlightening to you - the German system looks pretty drastically different from ours to me from that description, but I'll admit I'm not too initmately aware.
And hand-waving and saying "Hey they live healthier" might be right, maybe it is (although I highly doubt it from my trips through much of those EU nations better than us on the list above (Germany, UK, and Poland don't seem super healthy when it comes to their activities to me) - but when you're proposing NOTHING TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT you're doing nothing but wasting air.
PS - Looking at year by year costs of places that switched to a public option, they got cheaper after the public option started in many of the cases I've seen. Some like Singapore DRASTICALLY so.
Depends on what part of Medicare you're talking about - Medicare-A (Hospital Insurance) really is something that could see major savings, it's what ends up footing a large portion of the defaulted bills in the US (not to mention the same thing covered under A vs. B is paid about half or less of the cost since it's Hospital vs. Clinical). And of course you're ignoring in there that USERS OF MEDICARE PAY A FUCKING PREMIUM like so many people that talk about Medicare costs neglect to mention.
Citation please. You do realize that Japan has one of the highest (if not the highest) elderly per capita of the world, right?
Big Phoenix
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Xequecal
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In Germany the only real government involvement in healthcare is that they initially collect the money and then distribute it. The sickness funds are independent nonprofits. They are not run by the government, they have different coverage plans, and each person can pick which one they want. Also just like in the US, you can pay an annual fee to opt out of the public system entirely. The only major difference is you must have an annual income of around 55,000 Euro or more in order to be eligible to opt out. Other than that, there simply isn't a whole lot of difference in the US directly subsidizing poor people by paying part of their health premiums and Germany doing it indirectly by charging everyone a percent of their income. They don't do any of the things that public system advocates usually claim will bring all the savings. It's not single payer and the government doesn't negotiate drug/treatment prices directly. They also manage to have much lower overhead costs than we do despite still having a bunch of different insurers that all compete with each other. They don't use fee-for-service anymore, but that's a recent change and they still paid close to half of what we did when they were using it.
Also, I don't claim to have the answer to Americans not living as healthy, the only thing I'm saying is that switching to a public option clearly doesn't fix that. Insurance companies have 3-5% profit margins, so there's simply not much money to be gained, here. The pro-public option people literally try to explain this away by claiming, "If you let the government run it, there will be less bureaucracy." Which is about a dubious of a claim as it gets.
Next, it's interesting that you mention Singapore, because Singapore's public healthcare is nothing like anything in Europe or what Sanders is proposing. Singapore subsidizes each individual health treatment at a different rate. People have to pay some amount out of pocket for every health service, nothing is covered 100%. Routine medical care, checkups, and common drugs are not subsidizedat all,which is exactly what I was claiming we should do. Singapore's public insurance is pretty much equivalent to pre-Obamacare catastrophic health plans, you pay 100% out of pocket for minor problems and still have to pay a shitload for major problems.
I checked the SK suicide rate thing again, the 200/100,000 rate was for men only, it's about 120 overall, but that's still extremely high. The graph that shows this is right on the Suicide in South Korea wikipedia page. Japan has the highest amount of elderly per capita because they're not having any kids, not because of some medical miracle. Japan's extreme callousness towards the poor and needy are pretty legendary. Only about 1% of the population is on state benefits, Japan very much expects you to turn to your family if you're in need and kill yourself if they can't help you, the amount of shame they direct towards those that can't pay their bills is pretty insane.
Vaclav
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Yea, thanks for taking the bite on Singapore and proving you're fucking clueless about what Singapore's system is. I can safely ignore everything you say now, you're woefully uneducated on the subject you're trying to profess on.
Among other things, once your "HSA" is empty in Singapore EVERYTHING is paid for by the Fed (assuming you've been making your payments - I'm sure there's clauses for those that didn't pay, not heard of them however). It's more similar to an HSA before that - its not remotely anything like a catastrophic plan (catastrophic plans pay well after a limit is reached, that's the only similarity). Amongst other complete wrongitudes in your drivel there that would take more detail to explain.
Good day sir.
Big Phoenix
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Famm
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Vaclav
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No, I've studied it extensively because I love the entire concept of the system. It's a beautiful elegant design I got turned onto by another forum - and went on to delve into every piece of data I can on it. (I like the idea of universal healthcare but like many conservative folks I worry about the potential of overuse - the HSA nature of the Singapore system has the protection from catastrophe with the limits, no one defaulting on bills EVER, makes them want to ration their own healthcare rationally [since it's THEIR money they're wasting], etc)
But please, make up another story about how your father in a super sick fink leeching billions of dollars in government programs on a daily basis and yet never has managed to get himself in trouble over it. Those don't get tiring at all - and only been quoted about 10x more than any references to my family/acquaintances.
Tolan
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Single payer, or public funded health insurance (whatever you want to call it), lowers prices all around through better negotiation.
Single payer is essentially the antithesis of monopoly. Whereas a monopoly is a single seller with many buyers, all of who have zero negotiating power, single-payer is a single buyer with a plethora of sellers whose only negotiating power is trying to undercut the prices of their competitors. The in-network/out-of-network shit that we deal with in the US is an attempt to skew toward monopoly by limiting sellers.
Let's look closer at Germany.
Germany pays 12% of it's GDP into healthcare, we pay 18%:Health expenditure, total (% of GDP) | Data | Table
Germany's GDP per capita is also lower than that of the US ($47k vs $54k):GDP per capita (current US$) | Data | Tablemeaning that the absolute value of 12% GDP over there correlates to 10.4% of GDP in the US, which is pretty much exactly what Canada pays as their GDP percentage for their universal health care. So, were back to the same savings of >$1T dollars if we had Germany's single-payer system.
Anyone else want to try again?
Have you been to Germany before Tolan?
Have you been out of the country before?
Have you had healthcare in Germany? Any other country?
Do you even know what kind of taxes Germans pay?
Have you been out of the country before?
Have you had healthcare in Germany? Any other country?
Do you even know what kind of taxes Germans pay?
Tolan
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I know they pay the equivalent of $1T USD less per year for full health coverage of every German citizen. Does any of that other shit you're attempting to use as bait matter? No.
Xequecal
Trump's Staff
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Yes, I understand that Germans pay less. You're completely missing the point however, which was that Germany pays half what we do despitenot being single payerand being almost identical to what we have now.
Tolan
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Germany is not purely single payer, true, but they have automatic enrollment into a public funded system for the majority of residents. Over a certain salary, an individual is able to opt out for private insurance. 87% of the population uses the public system:Healthcare in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediawhich means that their federal states' single-payer entities (77% of all funds spent on health care) have the upper hand in the market. Still, everyone is covered. Economically and socially, it's not comparable to what we have in the US.
It is not comparable because it's a pure shitfest.
You get what you pay for. We aren't just talking dollars. Their culture is so bizarrely different. I lived there for two and a half years. I went through cancer diagnosis at the public hospital there. It was $900 a CT scan cash up front for me not being a citizen. That was "actual cost". They didn't want to tell me my diagnosis. They gave me no pain meds after ripping a softball sized lump of tumors out of my arm pit.
We had a local friend who's mother died. They asked how it happened. She had cancer for two years. She didn't even know she had it because the doctor told her when to show up and what to take and because of their culture she just did so without asking why.
When they finally did give me my diagnosis they shuffled me between four doctors until we told them what we thought it was and they confirmed it. They were worried we would be mad and they don't usually have patients with options.
Every time I went to the hospital there were patients lined up in the hallway on gurneys being drug from test to test. Just vacant stares on their faces like they were being taken to the ovens.
Socially they have a terrible medical system that the local people avoid at all cost.
Now look into their tax burden and tell me what you see there.
You get what you pay for. We aren't just talking dollars. Their culture is so bizarrely different. I lived there for two and a half years. I went through cancer diagnosis at the public hospital there. It was $900 a CT scan cash up front for me not being a citizen. That was "actual cost". They didn't want to tell me my diagnosis. They gave me no pain meds after ripping a softball sized lump of tumors out of my arm pit.
We had a local friend who's mother died. They asked how it happened. She had cancer for two years. She didn't even know she had it because the doctor told her when to show up and what to take and because of their culture she just did so without asking why.
When they finally did give me my diagnosis they shuffled me between four doctors until we told them what we thought it was and they confirmed it. They were worried we would be mad and they don't usually have patients with options.
Every time I went to the hospital there were patients lined up in the hallway on gurneys being drug from test to test. Just vacant stares on their faces like they were being taken to the ovens.
Socially they have a terrible medical system that the local people avoid at all cost.
Now look into their tax burden and tell me what you see there.
Tolan
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They scanned you and surgically removed a tumor for $900? Sounds like a great deal.
If you want to talk about anecdotals, I had an MRI a couple months ago that was billed to me at $2800 (it was originally $5000 before blue cross "negotiated" it down). I had a follow-up 20 minute EEG that was billed at $900. That's the cost for this American citizen to get scanned after already paying around $250/mo in premiums.
No the scan alone was $900.
The removal of the tumors later was $5k cash up front. I got my entire cancer taken care of with removal of more tumors, 6 months of chemo, and 6 different PET/CT scans for only like $6k here in the states.....
Your prices are that high because you don't know how to manage your own healthcare. Learn to leverage your out of pocket expenses. Learn about deductibles and caps and copays and all of that and quit being a victim of the system.
Tolan
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You are making a lot of assumptions about my knowledge of the system. I know all about HSAs, deductibles, co-pays, 80/20 coverage, out of pocket maximums, and denial of coverage for procedures that my in-network doctor recommends. The point is that no one should have to defend against being a victim of this shit health insurance system. A sick person isn't necessarily in a position to negotiate. As far as options, I have no options for health insurance plans from my employer and my employer is a multi-billion dollar corporation. A lot of employers only offer 1 plan, and to make it worse there are in-network out-of-network restrictions. There is a light year of room for improvement in this system. As happy as I am that slightly more people have some kind of option compared to no coverage before, the ACA is a band-aid on a shot-gun wound and it's hardly affordable.
chaos
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You got a super good deal if you only paid 6k for all of that treatment here in the US. The chemo alone should have been more than that.