Vermont single payer health insurance

#151
#151
utgibbs said:
Of course. :hi:

Has nothing to do with the fact Jim Crow was alive and well within our living memories.

I'm bored now.
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so in your opinion racism is the reason black people dont' live as long? diet not a factor?
 
#152
#152
utgibbs said:
Well, we can look at Germany and Switzerland, who, thanks to the power of Munich and Swiss Re, also have a predominantly private system.

They do it better than we do, but their expenditures per capita are still #2 and #3 in the world. Pretty telling evidence.

Which makes sense: health care is not a market / private health care has no incentive for efficiency.
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Germany has one of the oldest universal health care systems in the world, the vast majority of its funding comes from public funding.

While health care in Switzerland is run privately, all insurance firms there are required to offer insurance to all Swiss citizens, and all Swiss citizens are required to purchase it.
 
#154
#154
milohimself said:
Again, there's no way to make any conclusions on it. You're trying to compare two groups: Developed countries with universal health care, and developed countries where health care is practiced as a market. The sample size for the latter group is one: us.
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Huh?

utgibbs said:
But I'm all ears. Give us some "causation."
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Cost:

Highest mortality, heart disease. Annual US cost as of 2008: ~$273 Billion

Annual UK cost in 2006: ~ $47 Billion

Causation? We have double the obesity rate, higher incidence of new cases and higher costs for prolonged care.

Does that mean the UK system is better simply because it costs less? No, that is correlation with no regard for causation.

Infant mortality:

US: 1 in 8 births are premature (~12.5%).
UK: ~8.6% as of 2008.

Know what causes the most infant mortality? Premature birth.

Does that mean their system is better simply because they have a lower infant mortality? No, that would be correlation with no regard for causation.
 
#155
#155
utgibbs said:
I've answered it many times, MG. I've answered it in depth somewhere in this thread. The short answer is simply the real world outside the back door where all of the single-payer systems have better metrics for less cost. This is because 1. finite resource pool demands efficiency and 2. democratic accountability.

Now, show me some evidence where a predominantly private system controls cost please, or, failing that (which of course we know you will) provides comprehensively better health metrics.
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pedantic, esoteric, and a non-answer.

typical
 
#156
#156
milohimself said:
Germany has one of the oldest universal health care systems in the world, the vast majority of its funding comes from public funding.

While health care in Switzerland is run privately, all insurance firms there are required to offer insurance to all Swiss citizens, and all Swiss citizens are required to purchase it.
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Oh, I know. But those are the two with the largest components of private coverage (outside us, of course).

I know they do it better, and they cover all citizens. I wasn't trying to insinuate otherwise.

And, thus, it comes as no surprise they rank #2 and #3 in cost per capita.
 
#157
#157
utgibbs said:
Oh, I know. But those are the two with the largest components of private coverage (outside us, of course).

I know they do it better, and they cover all citizens. I wasn't trying to insinuate otherwise.

And, thus, it comes as no surprise they rank #2 and #3 in cost per capita.
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wait a minute. i thought the cheaper teh better for health insurance right?
 
#158
#158
MG1968 said:
pedantic, esoteric, and a non-answer.

typical
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You are insulting yourself.

1. budgets require using resources efficiently
2. democratic accountability

Not esoteric, certainly not a non-answer, and certainly not a lot of excess detail. I even numbered them for you. Here are two more:

1. Private system has no incentive for efficiency
2. Health care is a systemic market failure
 
#159
#159
droski said:
wait a minute. i thought the cheaper teh better for health insurance right?
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I'm far from heaping praise on them by saying they run their systems better than we run ours.

They have reasonable metrics, but certainly many single-payer systems have better at lower costs than these two.

It just shows how bringing the inefficient private sector into the game drives up costs.
 
#160
#160
utgibbs said:
You are insulting yourself.

1. budgets require using resources efficiently
2. democratic accountability

Not esoteric, certainly not a non-answer, and certainly not a lot of excess detail. I even numbered them for you. Here are two more:

1. Private system has no incentive for efficiency
2. Health care is a systemic market failure
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how are costs controlled? Britain withholds life-saving drug treatments for breast cancer because the medicine is too expensive. Is that what you're advocating?
 
#161
#161
MG1968 said:
how are costs controlled? Britain withholds life-saving drug treatments for breast cancer because the medicine is too expensive. Is that what you're advocating?
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It is a democratic process, MG.

We do the same thing on a MUCH larger scale and with no democratic accountability. It is ridiculous to argue that point, MG.

Moreover, I even think the NHS in Britain will usually pay the normal part of the experimental treatments with the individual covering the excess. How can you be against that?
 
#162
#162
MG1968 said:
how are costs controlled? Britain withholds life-saving drug treatments for breast cancer because the medicine is too expensive. Is that what you're advocating?
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Who is not controlling costs in this picture?

Health_care_cost_rise.PNG
 
#164
#164
fl0at said:
Huh?



Cost:

Highest mortality, heart disease. Annual US cost as of 2008: ~$273 Billion

Annual UK cost in 2006: ~ $47 Billion

Causation? We have double the obesity rate, higher incidence of new cases and higher costs for prolonged care.

Does that mean the UK system is better simply because it costs less? No, that is correlation with no regard for causation.

Infant mortality:

US: 1 in 8 births are premature (~12.5%).
UK: ~8.6% as of 2008.

Know what causes the most infant mortality? Premature birth.

Does that mean their system is better simply because they have a lower infant mortality? No, that would be correlation with no regard for causation.
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Double the obesity rate but six times the cost. :question:

Overlooks the higher smoking rate, but, obesity is the cause of heart disease.... (whoops!)

Even taking your numbers at face value with no citations, all you have said is the British system is no worse than ours, but it far, far more efficient.

Thanks! :hi:
 
#165
#165
utgibbs said:
You are insulting yourself.

1. budgets require using resources efficiently
2. democratic accountability

Not esoteric, certainly not a non-answer, and certainly not a lot of excess detail. I even numbered them for you. Here are two more:

1. Private system has no incentive for efficiency
2. Health care is a systemic market failure
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In the private sector, sure. If I put a budget together for my business that I own and blow it up in the 3rd Q, Im out of business by the end of the 4th.

If the government blows up a budget in a certain sector they fill the hole from another, or raise taxes in the future to cover it. They may deem that as efficient, I don't have that luxury. In this case the government has no incentive to be efficient.
 
#166
#166
MG1968 said:
hello? the US has 300+ million people, an aging population, and a serious problem with illegal immigration.
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Hello, Europe has exactly the same demographics and an immigration problem!

Regardless, one is clearly growing at a much higher rate. And this is normalized per capita.

Which is EXACTLY what our own projections maintain.
 
#168
#168
Okay, MG. I'm getting bored now. On last picture. Check out the slopes. That would tell you rate of growth:

davis_figES-1.gif


Fact is our metrics went down during the Bush II era as well....
 
#169
#169
utgibbs said:
Double the obesity rate but six times the cost. :question:

Overlooks the higher smoking rate, but, obesity is the cause of heart disease.... (whoops!)

Even taking your numbers at face value with no citations, all you have said is the British system is no worse than ours, but it far, far more efficient.

Thanks! :hi:
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Yes, because everyone knows that health care costs is linear math. /sarcasm.

When you have obesity, and all the end organ issues that arise from obesity, such as high blood pressure and end organ damage on the kidneys, you begin to see multi-system issues.

When you have obesity at younger ages, you have to treat them longer, which results in much more time in the office, many more drugs pumped through their system, and much more attempts at preventative issues that are ignored, resulting in secondary issues, such as Type II diabetes.

It is exponential math, not linear math. So yes, double the rate, much much higher costs because of the LENGTH OF TIME required for management. Jeez, man.

Let's look at risk for coronary heart disease, which, by the way, is additive. Normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol: relatively low risk.

Elevated BP, normal cholesterol: slightly higher risk.

Elevated BP, elevated cholesterol: even slightly higher.

Elevated BP, elevated total cholesterol, low HDL (from lack of exercise): much higher risk.

Add diabetes (from obesity). Higher even still.

Add smoking: Even higher.

So, yes Gibbs, smoking does play a bit of a roll. But 4/5s of the markers for coronary heart disease are due to .... obesity.

And when we have it at such a young age... to the point where people want to outlaw fast food... yea, costs skyrocket. It is not simple linear math.

If you want a citation for the above, try Wilson's article in American Journal of Hypertension.
 
#170
#170
I don't think the fact that the us's health system is market-based is what drives up costs.

It's a combination of high level of development, malpractice and other insurance costs for practitioners, poor health maintenance on an individual level, etc.
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#171
#171
If a single payer system would ever work, it would work in Vermont. It has a population with the diversity of Sweden. It ranks in the top 10 of most health measures. It has relatively high academic achievement. Its per capita income is in the top half nationally. What a great place for the single payer concept to burn and crash. They won't be able to point to demographics as an excuse when the costs go even more through the roof, taxes go up commensurately and the overburdened tax payers leave for a friendlier tax environment.
 
#172
#172
utgibbs said:
I just proved your points? That we have an abyssmal racist divide in our health care system? That even when we take away those dirty "ethnicities" which drive our health care numbers down ---

we still have worse infant mortality than all of Britain including every single one of their racial minorities.....

And that's just one example.

Yes, you are actually my alter ego. How else could I prove my points so deliciously than pretend to be a critic, but always talk myself into defending my opponent's position?

By the way, the racial divide in health care is both shocking and disgusting. We should all feel physically sick (pun intended) looking at these numbers.
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What's hilarious is that you didn't even realize you were deriding your own idiotic debate tactic.
 
#173
#173
Notice the lack of discussion from one side about the obesity and premature birth correlations. How incredibly predictable.
 
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