How do you think Healthcare should be run in the US or world?

[Fugus]

Did you get rated while in the service or after getting out and filing a separate claim?

I was injured in Basic, week 3. I got the run around from them for the most part but was they thought it was a pulled muscle and would heal in about a month and half. I got out and it never healed, after about 4 months out, I went to the VA and started that paperwork. They officially disabled me in May of this year, I got out May of last year but was injured March of last year.

I made sure to keep records of it though as the people in Sick Hall shrugged it off and the doctor almost seemed offended I was even there from day one, took them 3 days before I even got to see Sick Hall and it took over a month before they would even attempt to X-Ray it and had to beg almost every day for that. They said they found nothing but the local doctor found something when they did the outpatient thing in April. But oddly enough, the X-Ray I got last week they said they found nothing again.

[Pyrodevil]

Australian Doctor here.

I've worked in our healthcare system for 5 years now and know it first hand.

It costs our government a lot of money but fuck me it works.

Every australian (including non-citizens, residents etc) has access to top quality healthcare for free. Each taxpayer pays a subsidy on top of their regular tax to facilitate this. If you have private insurance, you are exempt from this subsidy.

Our emergency departments do not turn anyone away.

Even people with semi-elective procedures get done in the public system in a reasonably timely fashion. We've had this system so long, noone questions large percentage of government expenditure going into it. People see free healthcare as a right, not a privilege. Our governments spends approx 14-17% of our GDP on healthcare (less than the USA)

[Prokne]

And how, exactly, is that the fault of the free market? The hospital is bypassing it altogether by billing the insurance company for "additional costs". Why? Because they can and the insurance company will pay it. Nothing to do with the free market.

I dont think you understand what free market means. All it is is an economic system that isnt regulated by the government. So unless there are regulations on how much a hospital can charge for something, then the charge is based on free market values. In this case the market value is based on the bargaining power of the hospital vs the insurance company.

The fact that hospitals dont have a rational system for determining prices(or at least they say they dont) also doesnt mean its not a free market. You can find out how much something will cost a different hospitals before you go to them, you just wont have any effect on their prices because their big customers, the insurance companies, have much more leverage than you and whether or not a few people paying out of pocket dont go to their hospital wont cost them very much..

[Skroe]

Hey Brosif, good to see you on here again, I thought you gave up on these forums.

Appreciate it

This tier is going much quicker than expected (9/14H already... should get spoils Sunday), so I figured what the hell!

[Reclaimer]

It was fine until people with 20 kids and no health care coverage started filling up the emergency rooms for a runny nose.

Right, People going to the ER with paper cuts is my favorite -_-. I mean really, No wonder its all messed up. I was able to set myself up with a plan that don't cover shit for 30 bucks a month here in IL just to keep them off my back. If something really bad happens just go to the ER then laugh when they expect me to pay a 40k bill when I only make 15 lol.

[ishootblanks]

let each nation decide for themselves.. the USA was founded on the idea of individual freedom and liberty.. our system lead to the best healthcare system on the planet.. unfortunately though we ignorantly vote for politicians who are judged on their prowess and passing new laws and have little to no accountability for the results of those laws... in many cases are completely exempt from those laws.. this has lead to our system becoming more and more corrupt over the years..

if you like the single-payer big government model.. there are dozens of other wealthy nations to choose from.. move to one of those..

- - - Updated - - -

Right, People going to the ER with paper cuts is my favorite -_-. I mean really, No wonder its all messed up. I was able to set myself up with a plan that don't cover shit for 30 bucks a month here in IL just to keep them off my back. If something really bad happens just go to the ER then laugh when they expect me to pay a 40k bill when I only make 15 lol.

easy fix... allow hospitals to turn away people with non life-threatening conditions

[Deleted]

Ideally not letting people die - first aid, stabilizing critical patients etc. should be free.

Otherwise everyone should pay full price and it should be free market. I'm not opposed to senior citizens getting discounts and rehabilitation programs where homeless or unemployed people could get fixed up so they could get their lives back on track either.

However mandatory healthcare tax for everyone is just disgusting. Especially when taxes are already high and all that tax would guarantee is low quality public healthcare you may not even want or partial discounts.

[Deleted]

It doesn't to be one or the other public and private can coexist in peaceful lovin harmony

[RaoBurning]

However mandatory healthcare tax for everyone is just disgusting. Especially when taxes are already high and all that tax would guarantee is low quality public healthcare you may not even want or partial discounts.

Why is it disgusting? I will then follow up with the noted fact that most, if not all, countries with single payer systems pay less for their care (as a % of GDP and nearly every other metric I've found) than the US for similar or better care. All evidence indicates that despite our reservations the single payer system works great.

easy fix... allow hospitals to turn away people with non life-threatening conditions

Trouble is sometimes you have to take a look to see if something is life threatening. I went to the ER about a month back with god awful pains in my right lower abdomen. Turned out to be kidney stones - those hurt, spoiler alert - but I needed a scan to figure out exactly what was going on. Could have been my appendix or bad gas for all anyone knew just looking at me.

My uncle also went in a couple weeks back for an abnormally high, persistent fever. We don't go do the ER all whimsically, in case anyone gets the wrong idea. Turns out he had a blood infection and several abscesses developing in, shall we say, very private areas. Again, sometimes simple symptoms are indicative of much more serious conditions and you don't know that until you take the time to practice some good ol' fashioned medicine.

Addendum: If it wasn't clear, I'm in favor of adopting the European/Canadian/Japanese/rest of the civilized world's model of healthcare. Seems to work well enough. I'd go so far as to venture that it's borderline immoral to keep practicing such a flawed system when others are readily available.

- - - Updated - - -

It doesn't to be one or the other public and private can coexist in peaceful lovin harmony

Yep. As far as I've read the countries with public options also allow private insurance too. It's just not a life or death necessity.

[Deleted]

I like the way its handled here, by a nonprofit organisation largely payed for by taxes.

[Grummgug]

Obamacare is a dead end.

Science will find a cure for aging in our lifetimes, rendering most health care needs moot because the vast bulk of the costs associated with health care occur among the elderly. With aging cured, you're just looking at minimal insurance to cover catastrophic injury which will not cost much....at least until they come up with a solution to catastrophic injury which will occur not too much longer than the cure for aging.

We should see the cure for aging in the 2030s. If we are extremely unlucky, it will come in the 2040s. If we are extremely lucky, it will arrive next decade. But it is coming. The ironic thing is, by the time the government finally hammers out all of the issues with Obamacare (if it doesn't get repealed) it will become obsolete.

We'll see an incredible and amazing revolution in health care in the next couple of decades....and it will have nothing to do with Obamacare.

[zorkuus]

Science will find a cure for aging in our lifetimes

And candy will rain down from the heavens.

[Zogarth]

Fully goverment controlled like in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the like. Also, from my research, we pay less than the average american for better healthcare without all the annoying problems of dealing with a private company.

[Deleted]

Stopped reading, too long. Health care is a basic human right.

American logic --

Spending money to take lives in other countries is good and patriotic... Wouldn't want to make the glorious troops lose their jobs for the greater good...

Spending money to save lives at home is an outrage.

[Deleted]

Science will find a cure for aging in our lifetimes

Up until now this definitely wins the prize for most absurd reason not to support proper healthcare

[Djuntas]

Like we have it inn most European countries OP.

Woulden't change a thing, exspect stopping retarded people going to the doctor all the time cause they are a little sick.

[zorkuus]

Woulden't change a thing, exspect stopping retarded people going to the doctor all the time cause they are a little sick.

If you have a job then you have to even if you don't want to.

[Eon Drache]

I'm a bit biased on this because I've been turned down for health insurance at the age of 23. So I'm going to be paying a shit ton at the end of the year for.... Idk what exactly. I feel everyone has the right to be healthy. I take care of myself but because of something as stupid as a vitamin deficiency every health care I've tried that I could afford won't accept me.

[Deleted]

This is such a hard question to answer, how it should be run in the world.. Because you have a better understanding of the system you grew up in than another one. So for instance since Im western european Im used to social welfare state, and I cant imagine being penalized for things I cant do anything about (layed off, born handicapped, get injured on the job). If you work at wallmart and you have to personally insure yourself against all that, there is not much left of your income to pay your rent and the likes.

However I do see the need for some personalized healthcare as in the extent you wish to be insured, the quality of life you wish to have (state vs private hospitals for instance). Those things arguably could best be sorted on an open market. Although since the privatization of our healthcare the prices have only gone up, instead of down.. So theory doesnt always match reality.

For me I would choose the basics to be provided by government impartially, and extra's / luxuries to be a personal choice and therefore to be handled in a free market.

[Deleted]

Universal Free Health Care. Get in there NHS!