Universal Healthcare vs Insurance question

[Bluewolf]

I was tallking to someone and they brought up two points about Insurance System and Universal Healthcare. I do not have any real quotes but I want to know what to say or look for, for future reference. These two points were:

1. A regulated insurance system in which the goverment does not stop high rates or denial of services as well as providing a fall back plan would be perfect as the customer would not be screwed over and there would be competition, ergo advancement.

2. That a Universal Heathcare sytem would be a lot less in terms of quality for people overall and the quality of services would go down with nothing that could be done about it due to funding cuts/bad politics etc.

What is the best way to attack these statements?

[Darth Wong]

I was tallking to someone and they brought up two points about Insurance System and Universal Healthcare. I do not have any real quotes but I want to know what to say or look for, for future reference. These two points were:

1. A regulated insurance system in which the goverment does not stop high rates or denial of services as well as providing a fall back plan would be perfect as the customer would not be screwed over and there would be competition, ergo advancement.

2. That a Universal Heathcare sytem would be a lot less in terms of quality for people overall and the quality of services would go down with nothing that could be done about it due to funding cuts/bad politics etc.

What is the best way to attack these statements?

Ask them to back those statements up with actual facts rather than predictions based on their economic ideology. The fact is that the US system's "competition" is not helping patients at all; it is helping insurance company shareholders. And the US system's vaunted quality of care is based on two things:

1) Spending twice as much per capita as anyone else
2) Restricting care so that 40 million people are locked out
3) Limiting care so that there are heavy economic incentives to avoid seeking it at all

Basically, the switch to a universal health care system would benefit most of the country, but not the very rich who currently enjoy "the world's best health-care system" while their countrymen get the shaft.

[Gandalf]

2. That a Universal Heathcare sytem would be a lot less in terms of quality for people overall and the quality of services would go down with nothing that could be done about it due to funding cuts/bad politics etc.

Couldn't the same be said of anything that's governmentally funded, be it the military, education, or fruit fly research?

Also, ask for evidence. Keep some statistics handy, like the UN's HDI.

[Bluewolf]

Yes, I also mentioned that if a person who was not happy with Universal Heatlhcare; a secondary private one still exists that they can use. Problem is that I suspect that someone will keep saying that if it was just regulated more, the insurance system would be perfect. I do realise that its kind of hypocrtical to say the goverment would not do universal healthcare well then turn around and say they can regulate it.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, I also mentioned that if a person who was not happy with Universal Heatlhcare; a secondary private one still exists that they can use. Problem is that I suspect that someone will keep saying that if it was just regulated more, the insurance system would be perfect. I do realise that its kind of hypocrtical to say the goverment would not do universal healthcare well then turn around and say they can regulate it.

Do they understand that the health-care industry is not like other industries? Health-care is a critical public service, like the fire department. It is not just another consumer product, like handbags and television sets. You don't commoditize it for various reasons; does this idiot think that it's also a bad idea to have socialized firefighters and police?

[Bluewolf]

I don't know but Its something I should ask him. He does not seem to like the idea of a big goverment. He seems to be one of those classic "people should have a choice types" who would think that the lower quality would not be worth the increase of people getting treated. He seemed fairly frightened on the idea. I pressed him on the costs for minor things in an insurance policy and he came to the conclusion that he thought that insurance companies should not charge so much for little items like towls such in hospitals. Still seemed very for insurance though.


Oh and I want to raise another thing so as not to make another thread, he was also a bit scared of the idea of nuclear power plants. His reasoning was as there has been"abuse of the system when it comes to other power plants", that he would not trus companies building nuclear ones. He then went on to say he would perfer nuclear power to be minor in power supply and would rather rely on solar/wind.

[Samuel]

1. A regulated insurance system in which the government does not stop high rates or denial of services as well as providing a fall back plan would be perfect as the customer would not be screwed over and there would be competition, ergo advancement.

He is okay with people not having health care?

I don't know but Its something I should ask him. He does not seem to like the idea of a big government. He seems to be one of those classic "people should have a choice types" who would think that the lower quality would not be worth the increase of people getting treated. He seemed fairly frightened on the idea. I pressed him on the costs for minor things in an insurance policy and he came to the conclusion that he thought that insurance companies should not charge so much for little items like towels such in hospitals. Still seemed very for insurance though.

He is like the villain from Going Postal. People shouldn't have a choice for alot of things- if the government wants my money they can tax me, if they want my body, they can draft me. Giving people choice leads to some people choosing not to do so.

Oh and I want to raise another thing so as not to make another thread, he was also a bit scared of the idea of nuclear power plants. His reasoning was as there has been"abuse of the system when it comes to other power plants", that he would not trus companies building nuclear ones. He then went on to say he would perfer nuclear power to be minor in power supply and would rather rely on solar/wind.

He does realize the government controls the water supply, right? Is he batshit insane because he is starting to sound like it.

[Bluewolf]

He is okay with people not having health care?

He mentioned a fallback scheme which I assume is some kind of benefit for people under a certain income bracket.

He is like the villain from Going Postal. People shouldn't have a choice for alot of things

He was still like that when he does not have to accept goverment healthcare so he was talking bullshit really. All countries with UHC tend to have a private indrustry as a secondery choice.

He does realize the government controls the water supply, right? Is he batshit insane because he is starting to sound like it.

I am not sure but I think he means companies will undercut, contruct it poorly etc, thus leading to an acident.

[Samuel]

I am not sure but I think he means companies will undercut, construct it poorly etc, thus leading to an accident.

He does realize that we have a shit load of things that could cause accidents as bad or worse than nuke plants, right? Bhopal comes to minds- ask him if he wants to stop using plastics.

[Darth Wong]

He is okay with people not having health care?

He mentioned a fallback scheme which I assume is some kind of benefit for people under a certain income bracket.

In other words, the government still has to provide and fund a health-care system of last resort which is capable of nation-wide coverage, thus forcing the economy to shoulder the burden of two largely redundant health-care systems.

And this is going to be more efficient ... how?

[Bluewolf]

In other words, the government still has to provide and fund a health-care system of last resort which is capable of nation-wide coverage, thus forcing the economy to shoulder the burden of two largely redundant health-care systems.

Either or some kind of mad voucher scheme. You might as well go with a UHC anyway. He did metione he was more Conservative btw.

He does realize that we have a shit load of things that could cause accidents as bad or worse than nuke plants, right? Bhopal comes to minds- ask him if he wants to stop using plastics.

He seems to be going by assumption that due to compoanies potentially building below the proper quality, there should be no nuke plants at all. He also was a NIMBY when it come to location.

[Count Chocula]

Ask him to back up his "lower quality of service" statement with concrete data, such as number of doctors per capita in a "Universal Healthcare" system vs. insurance system. Any kind of data would start to crystallize the discussion one way or another, and seeing a difference in the number of doctors under the two systems may indicate which has potentially better quality of service (due to more doctors being available).

As far as the nuke vs. wind/solar idea goes: is he nucking futs? A nuke plant is fairly easily sited, does not use coal or petroleum products (which are needed for heating and transportation), produces waste that is easily dealt with, and does not pollute. Wind and solar are highly location-dependent, and the current state of both will not allow for them to produce a substantial part of the US' electrical usage. According to this link, sourced from the DoE, nuclear power generation supplies 8.2% of US energy needs, feeding the grid. Renewable sources provide 6.7%, and a much lower fraction of the electrical grid, than nuclear. Renewable sources include hydroelectric dams, and from Wiki hydro is over half of that 6.7%.

[Darth Wong]

So he doesn't trust private corporations with nuclear power plants despite a stellar safety record of never having killed a single person in the United States, but he does trust them with health-care?

He's a retard.

[Bluewolf]

OK, since I gotinto another debate with the guy over healthcare I want to post it here. Its a Google Docs page as its a bit long. Please tell me what you think and how I did:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcmqvrrk_9f6cgm4tx

[Formless]

(7:17:35 PM) Opponant: prove it
(7:17:52 PM) Opponant: see, I can do that too!

I would watch for this in the future, as I find it usually is a good indicator that the person you are talking to does not understand the Burden of Proof, a serious deficit in anyone's thinking. It is a very childish response intended to discourage the use of evidence at all, which favors the person spouting the most bullshit.

[Formless]

I finished reading it, and I would like to point out that he was trying, for the most part, to argue theoreticals with many assumptions attached that an American might take for granted, such as the assumption of government inefficiency and stupidity. You on the other hand were arguing practicality, and made no assumptions but asked a lot of questions he was not ready to answer because of 1) not wanting to be burdened by proof 2) believing wrongly that theoretical arguments need no proof. I have seen this kind of debating before, and it relies upon you taking the same assumptions for granted as he is. If you do so, you might find his conclusions to be logical BUT ONLY IF you accept his assumptions unquestioningly. It sounds like the only thing you were able to come to a consensus on was that some kind of system needed to be put in place, but not what. Correct me if I am wrong, but that seems to me to be what was going on in that discussion.

[Stark]

Remember that America would probably not use a Candadian-style system (where I believe there is only the public system, which is of a high quality) for cultural reasons, and would probably go an Australian-style system where private funds are allowed to operate as well. In this situation, competition with the public system appears to exert serious price pressure on the private system - I could get private coverage here in AU (which has all kinds of limts and caveats where I might end up recieving public care for various things) for absolutely trivial amounts of money. In this scenario, any selfish complaining about having to wait for non-critical care is irrelevant because for a few hundred bucks a year you can get private cover.

[Bluewolf]

Stark, I brought up that the UK healthcare system also had a private secondary industry that exists and that anyone who did not like the UHC by the government could use that instead. He retorted saying that is was was still not good as it was "out of neccesity" and that UHC was still the main healthcare system. He seemed to want a private industry as part of his hybrid system which he can not give details on. Somehow he will think that the health insurance companies and the goverment will cancel each others flaws out and somehow not have flaws of their own.

He also seemed to use the "all systems of have drawbacks" line of a way of negating UHC. I think it may be a form of a golden mean as his thinking seems to be that totally private is bad but UHC so somewhere between the two must be best. Also, does anyone have some good statistics on waiting times for private healthcare treatment in the US as well as people treated, health rate stats of countries? It would be helpful evidence to keep ahold of. Also iirc 49% of foreclosues in the US are due to medical bills that can't be paid. Not sure if that was in an article or not though.

I get buffeted with "well UHC puts critical operations on a waiting list" arguement while somehow insurance based healthcare is done fast and instantly.

[Darth Wong]

That's why you have to look at outcomes. Nobody has ever managed to show that the US system produces better outcomes than the Canadian system, despite:

1) Failing to cover 40 million people
2) Costing far more per capita

That is a pretty damning indictment. If it costs far more per capita and it fails to cover an astounding 40 million people, it had damned well better be far superior for the people who are in it. So where are the numbers to back that up?

[Darth Wong]

Here's a question for all those right-wingers who think that "wait lines" are some sort of silver bullet to slay the socialized health-care demon:

What's worse? A waiting line or a door slammed in your face?

Because "a door slammed in your face" is what the US system currently does to 40 million people, and even many people who think they're covered.

[mr friendly guy]

America has about 300 million people, and if what DW says is correct, thats about 13% of the population which isn't covered. If Australia or Canada didn't have to look after 13% of the population then our waiting lists would also shrink. But I guess that never occurs to the right wingers when they whine about waiting lists.

[Lusankya]

How often do countries with UC put "critical operations" on a waiting list anyway? As far as I was aware, the biggest waiting lists were for non-critical things like knee and hip replacements. Other things (such as sacral nerve stimulators for incontinence, which require the situation to be unresponsive to less invasive treatment for at least a year before the patient becomes eligible) require "waiting", but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Urgent situations, on the other hand, seem to get dealt with pretty much straight away.

[Broomstick]

How often do countries with UC put "critical operations" on a waiting list anyway?

Aside from that, even in the US we have waiting lists for some critical, life-or-death situations which the anti-UHC idiots conveniently ignore. Organ transplants are the most prominent of these, but if there are only 1 or 2 surgeons in the world who can perform a procedure there's a good chance you'll have to wait in line regardless of how urgent the matter is. If resources are limited - such as for organ transplants - you will also wait. And yes, some people will die while waiting.

When my mother needed cardiac bypass surgery in the late 1970's she was put on a six month waiting list for it - and got it in four because people on the list ahead of her died while they were waiting. And that's when our privatized system worked far better and excluded fewer people than it does now. (The wait was because there were limited numbers of surgeons who could do the surgery.)

So, the ugly little truth is that no matter what system you live under you are at risk of waiting lists.

As far as I was aware, the biggest waiting lists were for non-critical things like knee and hip replacements. Other things (such as sacral nerve stimulators for incontinence, which require the situation to be unresponsive to less invasive treatment for at least a year before the patient becomes eligible) require "waiting", but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you're an American used to instant service.

[Broomstick]

Here's a question for all those right-wingers who think that "wait lines" are some sort of silver bullet to slay the socialized health-care demon:

What's worse? A waiting line or a door slammed in your face?

Because "a door slammed in your face" is what the US system currently does to 40 million people, and even many people who think they're covered.

I just want to say, Mike, that you have a far better grasp of the situation than the vast majority of Americans.

[Lusankya]

As far as I was aware, the biggest waiting lists were for non-critical things like knee and hip replacements. Other things (such as sacral nerve stimulators for incontinence, which require the situation to be unresponsive to less invasive treatment for at least a year before the patient becomes eligible) require "waiting", but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you're an American used to instant service.

I was actually thinking in terms of quality of medicine. Usually, if a problem can be fixed with minimal invasion, then that's minimal invasion is the way to go. Of course, you're right that it may not be solved instantly, but it has less chance of complications. I imagine that most people don't know enough about medicine to realise that, though. I know, but that's just because my family is full of cynical doctors. Who are friends with even more cynical docters.