So why isn't US public healthcare and education cheaper than going private?

The government has every right to be in healthcare. Unless you want to pay even more or die before your time.

The problem with Obamacare is it failed to address the core problem. Healthcare in the hands of the private sector.

http://www.pgpf.org/sites/default/fi...-oecd-full.gif

The blue ones are all in the public sector.

Replies like this prove that many in the US have been brainwashed into thinking that the private sector can be better trusted to supply services like healthcare, education, etc. When the proof shows the opposite. Even with staff earning more there is no reason why it costs more in the US than it is in the private sector.

As for CEOs having one less yacht or one less mistress. The people who run public sector healthcare have neither.

Because it does and the proof is everywhere.

Since 2008 I've had cancer treatment and continual monitoring. Now I have 40% kidney function and will need dialysis in the future, then a bypass and maybe a kidney transplant. The cost to me. I paid for healthcare all my life to the government so it's now free at the point of delivery.

Up until 2008, I paid a percentage of my income every week so that when the shit hit the fan I was not charged horrendous prices.

The same has to be done for nursing care. Pay a small percentage of your income so when you get old you can be cared for and not have to break into your savings. Or get the young to pay.

What's the answer?

There are three. As more people become poorer and unable to afford US healthcare, they die earlier. As more people become poorer and unable to afford US healthcare, the US adopts the proven system of National Healthcare. As more people become poorer and unable to afford US healthcare, you pay more and more.

Because the facts are clear that under successive governments most people are getting poorer.

How much have you put away for your old age?

health insurance as a concept should be outlawed....you should not have to pay health/water/air insurance at all...in my country it starts at $4/month but even at $4/month it should be illegal...the very concept of having to insure yourself against being fucked in the ass is ridiculous...

american: "you dont understand our healthcare is the best in the world blah blah"
me: SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
american: "we are speacial blah blah"
me: SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
american: "yes I feel better now" :2 cents::2 cents:

Paying more taxes does not lower heathcare costs.

Costs can only be lowered by finding where the waste is -- and doing something about it.

The number #1 waste of money is in how healthcare is delivered in the USA: In an adversarial way with monetary interests being the prime driver. The uninsured get healthcare too late and influence the delivery costs and outcomes disproportionately negatively. There are too many medical errors made -- competence is lacking in well paid healthcare (no answer here :helpme ).

Universal healthcare with easy access to doctor visits and early treatment will cut a lot of excessive costs out. Not using the hospital ER room for non traumatic treatment situations will lower costs. Hospital ER rooms are the most expensive 'immediate care' situations. There should be walk in 24 hr immediate care in dense urban areas. Even if it is a skeleton staff after midnight a child with a fever or a minor laceration can be tended to.

New taxes to support a failing system will only make things worse.

Paul -- go someplace reputable for charts How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries? - Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker

https://s12.postimg.org/4stnsl58t/ka...lity-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/ov3cb7vf1/ka...rden-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/r3hisk2j1/ka...ures-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/mgbgqsf65/ka...fice-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/6tk7df1e5/ka...sits-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/xnfpl5r65/ka...ions-chart.jpg

https://s12.postimg.org/4z7cvoedp/ka...ates-chart.jpg

Forced insurance for all taxpayers and providing the working poor with insurance IS WORKING toward healthcare accessibility but it is only increasing accessibility into a dysfunctional health delivery system. The core problems are not being addressed -- we just apply band-aids and throw more money at the problem hoping it will go away. New spending or cutting spending will not fix the deficiencies in the system.

This is why Obamacare is a fail and Trumpcare will be a fail if ever enacted. We refuse to disrupt and reorient the whole healthcare delivery system so it works best for EVERYONE.

https://s12.postimg.org/x9edlk72l/ka...rors-chart.jpg

How is it that since the beginning of time humans prospered without health insurance and without any government involvement in healthcare, but past couple of decades it somehow became "obvious" and "the only" solution?

You keep saying "will", but do you have ANY evidence that that has happened since ObamaCare? Clearly more people are insured now, so there should be some evidence of lowered costs?

Idiot.. Obamacare has nothing to do with people on medicare..

This is the problem with people like Robbie, he's been sheltered his entire life from reality.

It doesn't matter if you have the best insurance in this country, if you come down with a conic illness they WILL find a way to drop you. They will deny payment treatment and what savings you had will be gone.

If you happen to get cancer and expect to pay for it yourself you can expect to pay around $20k for a round of chemo in the US. That's just a 1 round. Depending on the cancer you can go through 1 to 3 rounds. So potentially $60k just in chemo treatment which doesn't include all the treatment you went though to get to that point or the drugs..

The drugs for cancer treatment on average cost around $100k for a year. Meaning you can be paying $160k for just chemo and drugs and we haven't even talked about any surgery to remove the cancer or any of the countless doctor visits.

Treating cancer in the US will cost you into the 100s of thousands of dollars under our healthcare system because our govt wont create laws to control price gouging.

People like Robbie have no clue of this reality because he thinks he knows everything and won't listen to people who have seen it.

My grandmother had just under a million dollars in savings. She spent a bit over 10 years in a assisted living ficality at the end of her life. She was lucky and was for the most part healthy with no major issues before she died.

Every bit of that million dollars was gone long before she died. She eventually ended up on medicare because the healthcare system in thus country ate through a large savings like that like it was nothing.

How many people have even close to a million in savings? How many even have $10k?

Also I wanted to add the BS lies that Obamacare has failed is complete lies being pushed by Republicans. Obamacare works perfectly well in states that wanted it to work.

Republican run states purposely did not properly fund it so it would fail in their states. It's like buying a new car and not putting gas in it then bitching to the auto manufacturer saying you can't drive it.

Republicans purposely attempted to make it fail by not allowing it to work as intended. Even under this situation millions of people were still able to get access to healthcare.

Republicans keep running g around saying Obamacare has failed so their dumb dumb voters will believe their lies.

The simple fact is Obamacare works just fine in states that took it to heart and wanted it to work..

Republicans didn't want it to work and they purposely undermined it while fucking people over in their own states just because of politics and failed ideology.

This is a clear example of Republicans putting party before country and the good of the people. Republicans couldn't stand the thought that a democratic president had put together a working healthcare system for our country.

Republicans put so much effort into claiming it was worse than Hitler if it succeed it made them look like fools. So instead of working for the people and helping solve issues they instead lied and attempted to make issues worse.

It's the pinnacle of party politics in this country and clear example of a political party caring more about their brand name than what is good for the people..

Who would have ever expected that their voters were so stupid they would vote against their own interests and for failure.

i said they lost their money during the Obama PERIOD, not talking about care.
What did Obama do? Why is that lost money Trumps fault?

Paying more in taxes to a 90% public healthcare service has lowered the price.

I agree with you that more visits to doctors does prevent a lot of problems. How do you do that without ramping up the costs of whatever system is used? The higher the system costs are the higher the cost of increasing care.

New taxes removes the need to pay so much for private healthcare. So you pay less.

People died of conditions they now cure.

You're leaving out something. The Federal Govt. heavily REGULATES the health care system in the U.S., and has been doing so since long before ObamaCare.

And it's the Federal Govt. which set the rules allowing Big Pharma, hospitals, Big Insurance, etc. to price gouge the U.S.

You really had to live here to have seen it happen.
The Feds went so far as to stop people from crossing the Canadian border to get life-saving drugs that they could not afford to buy here in the U.S. and pressured the Canadian govt. to check ID and NOT sell to US citizens.

And that happened back in the 1980's after HMO's went into effect.

No...the healthcare industry, big pharma, and big insurance have lobbyists that spend so much money in Washington D.C. that getting the price gouging to stop wasn't going to happen.

With govt. involved it destroyed the market. The lobbyists made sure of that. They didn't want a competitive field.

They had Congress set up the regulations so it benefitted them.
That's the way our corrupt govt. works.

Before govt. got involved here in the U.S., we used to pay our medical expenses out of pocket. It wasn't expensive at all.
The only thing you needed was "catastrophic insurance". In case you were in a car wreck or had a heart attack, etc.

Trying to compare us to European countries that are much smaller and have a tiny economy compared to the United States...just doesn't work. Especially when the U.S. has spent so much money in Europe post-WW2 helping all those country's regain their footing in the first place.

"properly fund" means increasing taxes, cause in real world $$$ doesn't just grow on trees. So no shit that many states were opposed to raising taxes. Who wants to pay more taxes? Certainly not I or anyone I know, and I doubt you want to pay more either.

If I had to guess many in this thread, including you, pay fuck all in taxes, so it makes zero difference to you if taxes get raised or lowered. So it's quite easy for you all to play arm-chair philosophers, claiming how universal healthcare is a "right" or how it's the only sensible solution, you wouldn't be paying for it anyway, so universal healthcare is all benefits for you without any of the downsides.

Because all Obamacare did was make sure everyone is covered. Something most civilised countries enjoy. In America, the private sector runs most healthcare and controls prices.

To really lower the costs the Nationalised Systems have to be adopted.

That's not true. As a child I had both sets of GREAT-grandparents and all of their brothers and sisters (Great-Aunts and Great-Uncles)

Our family reunions in the 1960's were HUGE.

And the population of the United States kept growing and growing.

Using the false narrative you just laid out...everybody would have been dying young instead of getting medical care when they needed it and living to ripe old ages.

You must have misunderstood what I meant. I'm going to make up some numbers to make it clearer.

Imagine that before ObamaCare 70% of people had health coverage, now 90% have it. If going from 70% to 90% did not decrease costs at all, what makes you think that going from 90% to 100% will?

Why is lost money Obama's fault? You are just making up some condition by claiming people lost money because of Obama.. You don't say why you just say it's Obamas fault..

Obama didn't cause the housing crash, Obama didn't create our for profit healthcare system..

Yet you blame Obama..

It's not Obama's fault, your grandmother simply mismanaged her retirement funds. It's no one's fault but her own. If she didn't fuck up, your parents and you would have been set for life. :2 cents:

Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts.

More American White Women Are Dying Prematurely
As the Supreme Court considers the fate of Obamacare, new data shows that death rates among white women are on the rise.

No Solution to Worst Health Care Problem: Dying Early

So far Obamacare is all you have to change that. It's sad to see some Americans so against paying more to help their fellow citizens.

It's sadder to see why some are anti paying less to get a better system.

You're mad.

https://www.google.cz/search?q=us+li... oBoGe2-Uf7iM:

Are the 90% getting exactly the same cover at the same price?

I think you'll find that there were certain provisions put in that put up the costs. If I'm wrong it shows how corrupt the US healthcare system is.

In the UK they tried to make people with property pay for their own elderly care nursing home bills by selling the house and losing all but $160,000.

The young thought this was outrageous, so they didn't pass the law and now the young have to pay the bills. But some will get to have the house passed onto them.

Someone has to pay.

No one mismanaged anything, it's what healthcare costs. You are bringing up Obama for who knows what reason.

The point I was making is even if you are responsible and save a million bucks for your retirement thinking you can cover your expenses the costs are insane.

The fact you took it as money mismanagement just shows you aren't even listening..Much more it shows you have zero clue what healthcare cost in this country for elderly people who require long term care.

You're arguing with mostly with foreigners who don't know/understand that.

Red states that wanted it to fail handicapped the Medicare subsidies and gave permission to insurance companies to double, triple their rates, basically giving a huge profit windfall to health insurance companies fucking over consumers. No insurance companies lost profit the last 8 years, ALL had profit increases.

Whenever you bring this easy to verify fact up with redhats they melt down, it's not in their programming. They won't research it themselves, look at the stick increases etc. they'll just ignore it .

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...es-110116.html

Insurers' Profits Have Nearly Doubled Since Obama Was Elected | The Weekly Standard

Making a killing under Obamacare: The ACA gets blamed for rising premiums, while insurance companies are reaping massive profits - Salon.com

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...-best-solution


"Some will take this as a sure sign that President Obama?s ?sellout? to big insurance companies has worked exactly as intended: ?to multiply the profits of five giant insurance companies.?"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...der-obamacare/

Dude, the life expectancy of people has been going up for years and years. It's an AVERAGE of everyone.

A lot of that has to do with medical advances. A huge amount of it has to do with less deaths during childbirth.
None of it has to do with people having or not having insurance.

Come on...don't start cherry picking stuff to try and "prove" something. Let's just discuss things and make our points without deception.

EDIT: And if you look closely at that link you posted...it clearly states that on AVERAGE, people were living into their late 70's back in 1960. Not sure why you think I'm "mad". I think I made a pretty sane and precise point that you are wrong when you say people were dying because they didn't have insurance.

It's b.s.
I never had anyone in my family or knew any friends who died because they didn't have health insurance. Did that ever happen to anyone? Probably. But that would definitely be the exception and not the rule.

See! Redhat completely ignores the insurers income reports showing their profits.

Redhats aren't programed for truth, only propoganda regurgitation.

"It's a God-given right to carry a gun into a school but a privilege for a doctor to help you if you're sick" -Republican logic

In the US, that is basically how it goes. Several years ago my mom had some serious health issues and ended up living in a nursing home for about 1.5 years. She was 68-years-old and retired so we applied for Medicaid to pay for the nursing home. At first, they denied her because she had a life insurance policy that came with a $5,000 cash value. They made her convert that policy so it didn't have a cash value because the $5,000 was too much net worth to qualify otherwise.

You are purposely leaving something out Robbie...


The US govt doesn't regulate what big Pharma can charge for their medications, something that every single one of the countries on that chart does. The reason our costs are so high is because price gouging is NOT regulated...

There are more elderly than there has ever been. So your family anecdote means nothing. The problem is paying for their care.

Do the young pay it or do the elderly pay for it while being young? There is no other option.

As for health insurance that's another matter that could be included in the health insurance. As you're in favour of the American system how much more do you think it will cost?

I assume you are putting money away for your old age, you should calculate to live to 80. That's maybe 30 years without an income. Marie should calculate living to 90, 40 years without an income.

Which is how it should be. The old should lose what they have to pay for their care within reason. Or the young pay for it.

US Government regulates healthcare, but not the prices it charges. :1orglaugh

Let me use an analogy to make something clear;

If you have an automobile that has a 6 cylinder engine that is misfiring and running on 5 cylinders, that engine will sputter, chug along and stink emitting unburnt gasoline. If you regulate its speed to 15 mph/25 kmh it will still stink the same amount just take longer to travel the same distance.

The healthcare system in the USA stinks and changing the flow of money to the same services will not fix the problem.

Universal Healthcare, if badly delivered, will have most of the same problems.

The US government cannot take property without compensation. As it stands today, most healthcare is delivered by private entities with property rights. So, any comparison with places with long standing universal healthcare -- where the peoples' tax money has built healthcare infrastructure for many decades -- is not relevant and ludicrous to the US American healthcare *crisis* for many.

The only reasonable alternative I can see, is that the US government form a government owned entity like the USPS (post office), sell bonds and build a competing infrastructure. The government for years has maintained Veterans Hospitals, administered Medicare and funded Medicaid.

The US government already knows what the mistakes are -- maybe they can get it right this time.

A National Healthcare could be a huge competitive force, could offer liability relief to health professionals it employs lowering salary expectations. Building or buying and renovating existing healthcare facilities that will fail is not unfair competition -- this competition is in the public interest.

So what it really does boil down to is: Just who has their hand in who's pocket in Congress?

Harvard Business Review
The Big Idea: How to Solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care
https://hbr.org/2011/09/how-to-solve...in-health-care

long read ... Easier to mouth sound bytes

Rising health insurance costs are not an American specific issue

Cost of healthcare in Australia is much less than the USA, but if you just look at the insurance premiums we pay, they have at least doubled in the past 5 years.

I'd guess that scenario is the same in every country.