Just posting this quick thread as I would like to know the majority of peoples idea re government healthcare. As most people here are from US it might be different from Europe.

The basica idea of government healthcare is that everyone is covered regardless of their financial situation or whether they have taken out health insurance.

This must be funded through compulsory taxes which if you refuse/try not to pay, you will be thrown in jail.

Firstly, is this unconstitutional? Also, does this invade our privacy and is it against our rights to be forced to pay? Is healthcare a right or is it so important that the government must provide it through a re-distribution of wealth? Is such a system similar to a ponzi-scheme and bound to collapse at some point?

In the UK the majority of people are for the NHS (gov healthcare). However, it is in a bad way as it is massively over-stretched. Many government run things tend to be like this?

Are you for or against?

Discuss.

I don't think the question should be quite this simple. I take the view that a free market approach or a government approach would be fine, but the current system is neither and is clearly the worst approach imo.

What, no the NHS absolutely isnt in a bad way or overstretched. If anything its over funded. Your analysis of the NHS is 100% wrong and i speak as someone who knows a bunch of people who work at various levels including nurses and a department head.

Well I am a fully covered VA patient so my situation is unlike many others, but I love it, and the price is right, virtully free because of my military background long ago! I would not change for private , for profit, care, but my situation is not like a lot of others, so whatever!

I've lived in two countries where it worked very well. It makes people feel safe and lets them get on with their lives. The US is the only Western country in which I've felt a strong undercurrent of fear in the populace, and I suspect it's due in part to the lack of the social safety nets which are found in other developed countries. Ask how happy people are with their lives in Canada, and how safe they feel, and compare with the US.

In terms of ideology, universal health care is undesirable, but ideology sometimes falls flat when it comes to reality.

And I don't buy that public funding costs significantly more or is significantly more wasteful. Considering that health care is basically a government protected cartel, via the standards and protections imposed on being a doctor, nurse, pharmaceutical company, etc, it makes sense to have its administration in government hands. Government protected cartel + free market pricing is rife for abuse IMO.

Should be all or nothing. Any mix of public and private is usually a disaster.

Would you class our NHS and BUPA system to be a mix, or one of the all or nothings?

I dont necessarily disagree with you, i just think all or nothing is too rigid a term.

Probably true. I mean that if the government is going to get involved at all it should be single payer healthcare otherwise the inevitable corruption gets too painful.

yeah its not in a bad way really

people just say that

Government should have a 100% coverage after a $20k deductible policy on all citizens. Protects people from a catastrophic loss incident with still room for cheaper private insurance to cover everything < $20k. It's really the 6 figure bankruptcy inducing hospital bills that people are worried about.

YEP.

I'm pretty sure for a lot of people 10K is still pretty catastrophic.

Not to mention this causes people to avoid cheap preventative care increasing the amount of catastrophic coverage that has to be provided.

To those [not necessarily anybody in this thread (yet?)] who have argued so much over the last year that this is government take over, mandates are unconstitutional, our founders would hate this, etc.:

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-isla...ress-mandated/

What say you to this?

Health insurance will cause me to avoid cheap preventative care? Does not compute.

Then buy health insurance. **** will be dirt cheap now that their big losses are capped.

I have spoken to 10 doctors who work in NHS hospitals and a around 5 nurses. Every single one of them said that it is over-stretched.

Surely it is bounds to collapse at some point as everyone and anyone can walk in and use it. Anyone from any country on earth can do.

no government should not provide insurance, yes it's unconstitutional.

As a medstudent I really hope we have some sort of universal coverage in place by the time I'm practicing (even if I make less $). I don't know why we as Americans think we are so special or different compared to the rest of the developed world (and even some of the 3rd world) in this aspect. Because of our medical universities we will always (for the foreseeable future) have the world's best high end specialty care, but the fact that people have to use ER's as family docs b/c they can't pay for primary care is outrageously inefficient for everyone involved.

Do you mean for emergency care only or even for a cancer treatment or heart transplantation?

If I can't afford preventative care (because its not covered) - I won't get any. Someday I'll have a sudden ****ing heart attack and then the State will pick up my 100K tab.

Your whole premise seems to be that people have enough disposable cash to pay for their cheap preventative care or for health insurance for the cheap stuff. You seem to have no concept of how many people are actually poor and can't afford that or even just don't make good decisions.

Making health insurance cheaper would seem to help these people I have no concept of.

Would be nice to catch up with the rest of the world and provide a base level of healthcare for everyone.

To me, one of the government's primary duties is to provide for the general health and welfare of its citizens. That's why I favor healthcare coverage for all.

O we do provide care for everyone, we just choose to wait to provide it until they are mortally ill and it costs 100x more to address.

This thread is obviously going to be terrible, but for some reason I can't resist. The way that you have laid things out is such a gross oversimplification.

The first problem is that there is nothing "basic" about this idea at all. What do you mean everyone is "covered"? What people generally want is essentially all of the most cutting edge health care exactly when they need it. In a world of finite resources, this is impossible. Sure, there are going to be things everyone agrees on, like treating most heart conditions, strokes, etc. But there is a lot of stuff that is gray:

Would you cover bariatric surgery for overweight people? How about things like abdominoplasties after the weight is lost?

Would you cover viagra? Ok, say you would. How much viagra can someone get?

Would you cover psychiatric care for someone with a personality disorder?

Let's say one of the guys in Jackass knowingly does something stupid and injures himself, would you cover that?

Would you cover treatments for acne?

What about expensive experimental treatments for which no known alternatives exist?


The list of stuff like this goes on forever. Even if you could get some enlightened group to go through every possible medical intervention and decide which ones are "cost-effective" in terms of longevity or quality of life improvements, you would still run into a ton of problems. Of course getting past this step is very difficult.

Governments with universal health care try admirably to do this, but despite their best attempts there will be some person with condition X that needs treatment Y. The government won't pay for it, so the person tells you they are "not covered".