Health Care Reform

The old thread kind of dissolved and I wanted to start a debate on this again, only we would talk about all kinda of health care reform. So you crazy free marketeers can finally share your thoughts on fixing a broken system.

So I'm going to affirm that we need universal health care, while we also need Malpractice law reform.

Part 1: Universal Health Care.

All Industrialized nations treat healthcare as it should be a basic human right. Why shouldn't everyone have the right to healthcare? What's the counter argument to this? Is there one? I'll argue no. We all benefit from health care being a right. I'll come back to that though.

Two ways I think we should universalize health care:

One way is adopting a Canadian style system also known as Single Payer Health Insurance. Single payer actually out performs our current system quite effectively. It's cheaper, covers everyone and isn't nearly as bureaucratic.

The whole process would take Medicare and apply it to all Americans. That's the general model, I would simply add that as long as you're working, living in this country and paying taxes you should qualified for Medicare.

I'm sure many of you are thinking, well how is this going to be organized. Since if this was run by one government agency at the federal level it wouldn't nearly be as effective. Which is why it would be split up among the states or regions. States would the easiest way. Each state would have it's own office or offices to handle the work load of each individual state.

The down side to this is, private company's would be a thing of the past. A lot of jobs would be lost, however we can easily employ those people into positions within the new system.


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Now the other example I'm going to give is a System inspired by the French model which is a hybrid system of health care.

Health insurance company's will no longer have the right to offer general practitioner care. Basically anything non-specialized would be universal. It would be similar to the Single payer system, except it's primary goal would be prevention and caring for general illnesses.

Specialized care would be handled by the private insurers, they would receive no subsidies as all the money would be put into a general care and prevention. (it would probably cost far less as well.) This however leaves insurance company's intact and able to offer a service to Americans through specialized care.

Basically the government along with the insurance company's are working together.


Now part 2:

Malpractice reform, theres two reasons for this, one it does drive up costs, numbers tend to be exaggerated but doctors really have to drive up costs because they're in risk of a law suit as soon as they put on their stethoscopes. So it can help drive down the costs, which is always a good thing.

Also doctors often will not even perform certain operations because of their risk of suit. Doctors perform more c-sections now, then they did in the past. Why? it's harder to be sued for a c-section then natural child birth. It's because of our malpractice law that doctors don't look for the best treatment they look for the treatment that will give them a less chance of being sued.


One way to fix this is, instead of jurors deciding on these cases. We allow Medical Professions to serve on these jury's as well. Maybe even split it up between regular people and medical professionals. Largely these frivolous law suits happen because the jury doesn't understand what's being presented to them.

The plan Obama is seeking to adopt is far closer to the French model.

Also,
http://www.barkbarkwoofwoof.com/2009/08/in-nutshell.html

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

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and
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/inelastic.asp

What Does Inelastic Mean?
An economic term used to describe the situation in which the supply and demand for a good are unaffected when the price of that good or service changes.
Investopedia Says
Investopedia explains Inelastic
When a price change has no effect on the supply and demand of a good or service, it is considered perfectly inelastic. An example of perfectly inelastic demand would be a life saving drug that people will pay any price to obtain. Even if the price of the drug were to increase dramatically, the quantity demanded would remain the same.

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As for Malpractice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...an_health_care_systems#Malpractice_litigation

The extra cost of malpractice lawsuits are insignificant proportions of health spending in both the U.S. (0.46%) and Canada (0.27%). In Canada the total cost of settlements, legal fees, and insurance comes to $4 per person each year, but in the United States it is $16. Average payouts to American plaintiffs were $265,103, while payouts to Canadian plaintiffs were somewhat higher, averaging $309,417.

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Also, how is malpractice giving doctors risk not a good thing? There is most likely the chance that more babies were saved because they did a c-section, removing the chance that something that could have gone wrong from going wrong. When my little brother and sister were being born, if there were signs of umbilical cord trouble close to labor, they wait it out till it got very close to the exact date. Trouble with that is, babies don't always come on time. They have no sense of punctuality or arriving fashionably late. so, from there are options are do a c-section, or try to teach unborn babies party etiquette. I don't know if you have ever tried to teach an unborn baby, but its hard to get through to them.

The only info I could find on the death rate is nearly 10 years outdated.
Death rate for non-voluntary c-section: 2 per 10,000:
Death rate for all ******l deliveries: 2 per 10.000

Its more than likely these procedures have been improved.
Even then though, the issue with this is that c-sections are done on necessity, because something is going wrong.
If the birth is maternal, then everything is believed to be going correct. Its very well that some of the c-section children were going to die either way.

I saw that first quote on a YT video by C0ct0pusPrime and wanted to use it for the first thread before it died.

Crashic beat me to it though.

God **** it crashic you weren't suppose to post. Wtf man!

I wanted this to devolve into mindless hate between liberals and conservatives about healthcare!

But yeah the malpractice argument that it drives up cost is bull ****, the problem I have with malpractice law is it's mostly frivolous law suits. Giving doctors risk is good in theory, but not when they're over looking more effective treatment because they'res a risk of getting sued for doing it.

Also C-sections are more dangerous then actually letting the child come out through normal child birth process.

Unless there's an actual risk to the mother or child, natural pregnancy is usually the best way. C-sections are just more convenient for health care professionals. You don't get sued as easily for them, and they're more profitable.

as far as Obamas plan being similar to the French model I have to disagree. While the crazy one I suggest (which is really a compromise between socialized medicine and the free market). The problem with any bill congress seems to pass is they don't even try to make an officiant bill. The french model costs about 3,000 Capita Per person, America is 6,000 and given the fact that the bill is going to increase the amount of money, I say it's doing a horrible job.

Not to mention it's inner workings are not close to being a french model. Then again we shouldn't be trying to copy any model we should be looking at all those systems and trying to incorporate the positives into our own.

All 5 bills talk about allowing free practice.
All 5 bills allow private insurance companies and doctors.
In that way, it is closer to the French than the Canadian or the UK.
The difference comes in on the way to recieve universal health care, which we don't even know how we plan to yet. I was waiting for the final bill to be written so we could have a debate not on loose ideas of medical care, but on strict things set in the bill, where we can pick apart its plan, compare it to similar models, and debate its relevance in economic theory.
Also, as Goldshadow said in another thread, a lot of malpractice suites get picked up by a government agency and settled there, the doctor receiving no cost to himself.

CRASHiC said:

All 5 bills talk about allowing free practice.
All 5 bills allow private insurance companies and doctors.
In that way, it is closer to the French than the Canadian or the UK.
The difference comes in on the way to recieve universal health care, which we don't even know how we plan to yet. I was waiting for the final bill to be written so we could have a debate not on loose ideas of medical care, but on strict things set in the bill, where we can pick apart its plan, compare it to similar models, and debate its relevance in economic theory.

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Yeah but those things were going to be in it regardless because we're Americans.

Americans and the French oddly enough are more a like then the English I think. Basically I want this thread so each member can come up with their own "plan" and argue it. Which is why I called it health care reform, not universal health care.

Again about malpractice; Tell that to the doctors who have to pay enormous amounts of money on malpractice insurance. Many doctors leave certain states because of malpractice law.