Maybe all those $100+/mth meds aren't as wonderful as advertized.

I hate to break it to you, but that referendum was bull****. It has no force of law and was proposed by politicians to dupe dumb voters into thinking they had done something.

Google "nullification". Ask the proponents how that went.

How do you expect people to do that? Healthcare expenses for the most part are not predictable and not avoidable. How are you supposed to prepare for someone having brain cancer or your child getting leukemia or something of that nature? Are you asking people to save up a few extra hundred thousand for whatever happens? The free market system that we have is the worst possible system on the planet.

Or you could buy health insurance. I mean it's not a perfect system but neither is any other.

ahahahahahahahahah

The problem is that even if you have health insurance you still don't know if you will be covered or not. It's still a pretty big risk that you don't see in any country with universal healthcare. Have you ever bought health insurance?

I'v had some health problems here in italy, and I was more than happy.

Here you pay 34€ for ever exam your private doctor ( who is free ) assigns you, and 0 if you get checked up by the ER ( there are two lines tho, "real" ER patients, and patients that have stuff the basic doctor should have checked; the second line has to wait until all ER patients are done or there is a hole ).

I went to the ER with breathng problems, got on a stretcher after 5 minutes after a basic check up, got an x-ray after another 10 minutes and got operated within the next hour. I then had to stay 8 days recovered in bed. After all that, they shook my hand and I was out of there without paying a cent.

waiting times can get meh in big cities if you are not ER material, as in a day or two for an x-ray and a week for bigger tests, but I always found it doable. If you want it right now, paying and doing it privately is always an option.

If you look back to my original post in this thread, I was responding to someone who said that people were getting bankrupted by bills less than 10K.

But, as casey said, for this stuff, you buy insurance. And for a rational person that should be among the highest priorities. Unfortunately, most people don't see it this way.

So, have you bought health insurance, and did you have dependents involved?

This is false. There is no system in the world that will cover everyone for everything. Do you really think that everyone in Mexico (an example used in this thread) has access to every treatment and coverage for every illness that anyone in the United States has?

In many countries w/ universal health care, there are many expensive treatments that the system just doesn't cover. But since almost no one has access to them it's less noticeable.

Here, at least some people (i.e., those with means) have access to such treatments. So that's a good thing. But it is balanced, and according to most, outweighed by those who can't even get access to the inferior treatments.

Yes, but my situation is atypical as I can easily afford it. I realize I am lucky and there are many less fortunate than I.

Medicare is $99.50 a month. The rest of you taxpayers are subsidizing it. If Medicare were required to pay its own way, no one would want it.

Ok, http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/h...e?_s=PM:HEALTH

It's quite obvious that financial strain in this country is huge when 60% of all bankruptcies in this country come from medical bills. Now I can't find any information about people in countries with universal health care having trouble paying medical bills and coming into financial duress because of it. Can you find some? Also, have you bought health insurance in America?

The expenses are hardly random. Many Americans just aren't properly taking care of themselves. 2/3 of adults are overweight. Many refuse to exercise. While some ailments are unavoidable, many are the fault of that person.

You dont get to use the Mexico comparison. Mexico is an awesome example for how America spends 9 times as much to live less than 2 years longer on average, but its a completely invalid example when you talk about "no system in the world".

And as for the last paragraph rich people usually get to buy these expensive super rare treatments if they want even in UHC countries. The market means they often cross borders to do so because its so super rare like 5 doctors in the world are qualified and that does mean going to America right now most of the time however if America had a functioning healthcare system this wouldnt change. I dont know if any country with UHC has any kind of bans on paying for these treatments, they just dont cover them under the UHC.

I am against it.

Gentlemen let's look at the entire picture not just healthcare for everyone.
I live in Iceland where we have a national health system, and in the name of reducing costs for the national health system various politicians currently have a bill in the senate to ban the sale of tobacco everywhere except pharmacies and within 10 years make tobacco illegal unless you have a prescription.

We have a sugar tax because fat people are a burden on the health system, various left wing politicans talk of putting monster taxes on fast food and other unhealthy food or just ban them all together.
The government has a monopoly on alcohol and its taxed to hell example: a beer at a average club/bar is 6,50$ and the cheapest vodka bottle at the government store is 55$

Under this system there is no responsibility, a man can eat fast food three times a day, smoke 2 packs a day or snort gasoline and the productive tax payer always has to pay the bill.
Our best doctors and other talented people are leaving the country because the high tax system punishes success and rewards the lazy people.


These are just small examples of what restrictions a government run health care system are on freedom.

Once again, if you look back to my first post in this thread, I never claimed that this isn't a problem or that some people wouldn't be bankrupt even if they saved as much as possible for health care expenses.

My point, once again, is that if there are a large number of people being bankrupted by medical bills under 10K (which was what was alleged in the post I first responded to and is compatible with the link you provided), then I'm sure that at least SOME of those people could have avoided it if they treated saving for health care expenses with the importance that it deserves. Unfortunately, most people don't do this.

It is simply irrational not to try very hard to save a lot of money for health care. Is your argument that health care care expenses are so high and random that people really shouldn't bother trying to save for them at all? Because if it's not that, then I'm not sure what we're arguing about.

Isn't the problem that most of those people thought they were covered?

I mean if I have bought an insurance for health care and make my payments then I really shouldn't need to save on the side.

In the socialized countries NOBODY is declaring bankruptcy because of medical expenses, though. Don't you think that kind of outweighs your whole expectation that a certain number of medical bankruptcies is a given? Why not have none if you can?

If people's employers werent subsidizing the cost of insurance, then your true out of pocket monthly expenses would be in the $500-$600's. Thats just for the premiums, not counting deductibles or other things to save for. Most people only make about $2000-$3000 per month, so thats 25% of their income on average going towards just covering the premiums. To save $10,000 would require an additional $200-$1000 per month in savings, depending on your goals. Plus most insurance only pays up to 80% of your treatment anyway for a whole variety of issues. So someone should really be putting 50% or more of their income towards health insurance, just for the off-chance that they might get seriously injured. Then they have the privilege of having a board of people look for any opportunity to deny this coverage.

This is simply not realistic. If all the insurance companies decided to gouge consumers (more than they already do) and demand 80% of your income to cover you, do you think it would be stupid of people to reject it then?

The simple truth of the matter is the problem is a profit driven healthcare system. Healthcare isnt a choice, it isnt a luxury. The health and well-bodied population of a country is necessary to ensure longterm success. Healthcare should be considered a fundamental utility provided to us much in the way our military, police force, fire departments, and intra/interstate road networks are.

Sure, the problem is that the medical industry doesnt shovel hundreds of millions to lawyers, administrators and investigators to find loopholes to show the coverage you thought you had in fact you didnt have. But that isnt surprising that they do this and its the inevitable consequence of privatised healthcare.

LOL, you really want to use life expectancy to further your position? The USA ranks near the bottom end of the spectrum of industrialized countries:



Basically if this is the criterion to use for measuring 'success' of a health care system it would convince anyone that the US system is among the worst. But hey, it's better than Mexico's, so that's something.

Certainly not completely random. I agree that there is more people can do for their health, especially in America. But that does not mean they should become impoverished because they got sick.


I am curious about your background. I wonder how you think it is possible for any sizable portion of the population of any country to afford health insurance payments while saving thousands of dollars for possibility of not being covered. Do you also think they should have a personal fund set up to sue their insurers in case they are denied coverage and have to fight them in the courts to get the bills payed for the coverage they bought?

Honestly I think your opinion about how things work in the real world is not vested in reality. If you look across the world you can see how every country but the US and China provide some type coverage for their population. You should understand that we are the ones making intentionally harder on our citizens for no viable reason.

I would imagine it to be a pretty brutal experience.

The post I was responding to said "any country with universal health care", so Mexico qualifies. Perhaps you hoped I was responding to the point in your head instead of what someone actually wrote.

I only used Mexico as an example because it was used in this thread. I'm pretty sure that my statement is axiomatically true. No system covers everyone for everything.

As far as the second part, I disagree with your statement that in rich UHC countries patients can get virtually everything they get in the US. A thorough discussion of this is going to require more effort than I want to expend. Here's the way that discussion would have to go:

1. I find example of rich UHC country that doesn't provide X treatment, that Medicare and most insurance plans cover.
2. I then show that this treatment does provide significant benefits in longevity and/or quality of life. (This is the most time consuming part).
3. Once I've accomplished step 2, you'll say that's just one isolated example, and ask me to provide another.

We'll repeat steps 1-3 until one of us gets tired or bored.

So, let me save you some trouble. I do think that in some rich UHC countries, patients can get very good health care. However, I think that there are a certain number of conditions (X) for which you will receive much better care
in the US.

Our difference of opinion is that I think X is a low number but significant. You think X is a low number and is insignificant. We're never going to resolve that here.

When you are trying to cover "no system in the world", surely you see why its not a good idea to start at a third world corrupt hell hole people get smuggled out of in order to pick strawberries for a living?

And fwiw in a greater sense your point is probably true, but you achieve nothing by comparing America to Mexico unless you are actively looking for a terrible country.