Thread: Universal care cheaper and better than private insurance.

Originally Posted by Versus

Oh,Gunnut
You are so very wrong comparing these things.
Food, gear boxes, bookshelves, houses are material, physical things while health is a virtual category since it has no material characteristics. With a material goods such as food and machinery you have a precise parameters such as materials used, processes used, energy spent etc and according to those parameters you can calculate the price

With health it is a different thing. Laws applied there are not the same as they are for other things.

So you don't value your life? You don't value time spent with friends, family, etc.? You can't make an informed decision about whether to spend money on a PS3 or Wii or spend it on a checkup or treatment? Is it worth it to spend $1000 on Lasik surgery?

A doctor's time, medicine, etc. are all scarce resources that have both a supply and a demand. When you have both supply and demand, you can find a price that will clear the market. It's when we try to legislate away price that people die - just read any of the market for organ threads on the forum to see how a mandatory price of $0 for organ donations kills people.

The foundation for Universal Health care is in principle of solidarity, while in private insured healthcare principles lie in financial sector, in banking to be exact. Both systems have their pros and cons when applied. But principles stay the same.

In the societies which have Universal Healthcare system, price for having that system is higher taxes and, depending on organization and management, time needed for the care to reach ones whom need it. Already sick, people have at least some comfort in knowing that they can get help. Universal Healthcare system is often seen as safety net mechanism and as such it reduces the level of stress in population. It eliminates, to some level, the fear of sickness and gives hope. Fear of sickness is one of few prime fears that humans as being have. Sickness can mean death and therefore it addresses to our prime urge, urge to preserve life, urge to survive. Since fear of sickness is actually fear for life it holds immense energy potential, because it is directly linked to us as beings.

I mean, we all heard stories or experienced situations to fight for our life or the life of our loved ones and in those moments we are capable to do things that we were not aware of.

Fear indeed is a powerful motivator but a very bad engine.

In societies that have private funded health care system, benefits are the time needed for the care to reach ones whom seek it. It doesn’t necessary means that the quality will follow. Societies with private healthcare also have low taxes so the government is relatively cheaper. But for the people who know that they live in a society which won’t help them in the times of need, that creates an abnormal stress. People in that society feel frighten on everyday basis. They are easily provoked, the act with almost animal instinct and the society is more violent and aggressive. The aggression comes from two factors. First one is the urge to survive and the other one survive by all means. In that society, moral values, humane virtues are gone, they are seen as unnecessary and even damaging since they are taking a valuable time from the reaction time. In that society the very notion of collective is forgotten while individual wellbeing is under hot spot all the time. Individualism which is brought up to the point of alienation accrues than. To know that no one is going to help you, the very sense of that, breed conflict situations, since people do live close to each other yet they can’t rely on each other and that pushes situation further into the violence. Since everyone is left to fight for themselves, the society is more dynamic and therefore prone to rapid changes which, since there is no safety net, range from one extreme to another.

This lack of continuum breeds the feeling that everything is possible in one moment and in the other that nothing is possible. I think that this line actually explains why some of you here on the WAB can’t understand what I am talking about, aside from my bad English, since my American experience is not the same as yours. It is almost like USA is multidimensional state in which dimensions never come voluntarily in contact with one another and when they do that contact is always violent.

So to try to finish this before this turns into 400 pages post, universal health care is not a pure question of type of service provided and it’s funding, it is a question of perception of reality.

Back to the old question. What do you have in mind with this "universal" health care? Is it free for life?

For all its faults, I approve of the UKs NHS. Speaking for myself, I received Rolls Royce treatment when I most needed it, including a helicopter trip to the Intensive Care ward. The NHS adds immeasurably to the quality of life here. No-one need live in dread of being unable to pay for their familys treatment. For those who want it private medicine is available. The only real benefit of that is a shorter waiting time for surgery. As far as I am concerned its the best of both worlds.

Originally Posted by glyn

For all its faults, I approve of the UKs NHS. Speaking for myself, I received Rolls Royce treatment when I most needed it, including a helicopter trip to the Intensive Care ward. The NHS adds immeasurably to the quality of life here. No-one need live in dread of being unable to pay for their familys treatment. For those who want it private medicine is available. The only real benefit of that is a shorter waiting time for surgery. As far as I am concerned its the best of both worlds.

Would one have to work for this level of care? Or any unemployed Joe Schmoe receives this type of care?

Originally Posted by gunnut

Back to the old question. What do you have in mind with this "universal" health care? Is it free for life?

No, it is not free. People pay for it trough the taxes and the service is manged by the government. There are no pre existing conditions, everyone is eligible for it and eligible for life.

Originally Posted by gunnut

Would one have to work for this level of care? Or any unemployed Joe Schmoe receives this type of care?

Every UK worker pays for it through the snazzily named National Insurance. As long as the worker remains in employment the NI must be paid. It is not paid by those out of work. Does the system get abused by the work-shy? You bet it does but the numbers doing that are relatively small. It does annoy people that the government has taken no steps to close that loophole.

We had instances a few years ago where Saudi well to dos would come over, faint recent illness and be treated on the NHS. Some of the treatments included heart surgery.:( Due to the recent influx of European workers the NHS is at full stretch to say the least

Originally Posted by Shek

So you don't value your life? You don't value time spent with friends, family, etc.? You can't make an informed decision about whether to spend money on a PS3 or Wii or spend it on a checkup or treatment? Is it worth it to spend $1000 on Lasik surgery?

A doctor's time, medicine, etc. are all scarce resources that have both a supply and a demand. When you have both supply and demand, you can find a price that will clear the market. It's when we try to legislate away price that people die - just read any of the market for organ threads on the forum to see how a mandatory price of $0 for organ donations kills people.

No Shek, I don't value my life, simply because I think that my life as well as yours or anybody else life is priceless. I don't have the problem of paying higher taxes and having government run the health care. But I do have a problem with people whom profit out of other people misery and pain. And especially have problem with people whom profit from diseases.

Originally Posted by Versus

No Shek, I don't value my life, simply because I think that my life as well as yours or anybody else life is priceless. I don't have the problem of paying higher taxes and having government run the health care. But I do have a problem with people whom profit out of other people misery and pain. And especially have problem with people whom profit from diseases.

Sorry, but priceless is a lame answer. It avoids the law of opportunity costs. The funny thing is that even a government run system has to face this question. What services will it provide? When do they pull the plug? More treatment to one person means less treatment to another.

Should someone be forced to pay for cancer treatment that is the result of a person's choice to smoke, a voluntary choice? Should we get rid of doctors since they profit from others' misery and pain and diseases? Get rid of nurses? Get rid of hospitals?

These objections only avoid the reality that there are scarce resources out there and therefore, tough choices that have tradeoffs must be made.

Originally Posted by Shek

Sorry, but priceless is a lame answer. It avoids the law of opportunity costs. The funny thing is that even a government run system has to face this question. What services will it provide? When do they pull the plug? More treatment to one person means less treatment to another.

Should someone be forced to pay for cancer treatment that is the result of a person's choice to smoke, a voluntary choice? Should we get rid of doctors since they profit from others' misery and pain and diseases? Get rid of nurses? Get rid of hospitals?

These objections only avoid the reality that there are scarce resources out there and therefore, tough choices that have tradeoffs must be made.

Ok try to understand like this:
You have the 10 people in a private founded system and you have 10 people in a General health care system. Each group has 10.000$ income. Treatment that they need costs 20.000$. Each group has a year to live if they don't get the treatment.
10 people in the private founded system can't afford it.They die.
10 people in the General health care system give 1000$ monthly for the general health care trough taxes. At the end of the year 6 of them get the treatment and live while 4 die.

Originally Posted by Versus

No, it is not free. People pay for it trough the taxes and the service is manged by the government. There are no pre existing conditions, everyone is eligible for it and eligible for life.

So those who are unemployed don't get care. That's not very universal, is it?

Originally Posted by gunnut

So those who are unemployed don't get care. That's not very universal, is it?

Nope,everyone gets it, unemployed and employed. The point is to remove despair and hopelessness. Since those conditions are road that leads to depression and in depression people are harder to motivate and they are less productive. Plus they are prone to irrational thinking and that affects security of the whole society.
Only if you give to all people an equal clean start, with free healthcare and education, and after that they turn into bums you can call them lazy. But if you cripple a runner before the race, you can't actually blame him for loosing the race...

Originally Posted by Versus

No, it is not free. People pay for it trough the taxes and the service is manged by the government. There are no pre existing conditions, everyone is eligible for it and eligible for life.

Originally Posted by Versus

Nope,everyone gets it, unemployed and employed. The point is to remove despair and hopelessness. Since those conditions are road that leads to depression and in depression people are harder to motivate and they are less productive. Plus they are prone to irrational thinking and that affects security of the whole society.

How do I get health care if I am unemployed and have no money. No job means I don't pay any taxes.

It's not free but unemployed who pay no taxes have access to it...

I don't quite understand how this system works. Can you clarify so I can plan on how to take advantage of it?