thoughts on these being included when we have the medicare/care for all ? does this factor your decision at all? and does it matter if it benefits the greater good of all peoples?

Moral hazard is not a big concern.

Cancer, heart attacks, being run over by a car etc etc all suck big time even if you have healthcare. It's not fixed by having insurance to any sort of extent where people think why should I look care about my health, I've got heath care.

I live in a country that has healthcare for all.

In my experience, neither is true when you have healthcare for all. When it is readily available, people have a low threshold for maintaining their health instead of merely seeking remedy. Which is the exact opposite of the behavior described.

Why is this good? Because preemptive measures are extremely cost-efficient in medicine. It is generally much cheaper to avoid a medical disaster than it is to fix it. It is of course also better for the person involved. You don't have to worry about seeking a doctor to see if your condition is serious, because there is no financial ruin involved if it is. It is likely that this leads to more medical conditions being discovered at an early stage.

My wife works in the state health department and sees the numbers that hospitals put out and something like 60% of the money goes to CEOs and health administrators. Add to the fact that doctors make 25%-40% more than other doctors in other countries and you have one big ****ing health price tag.

I agree with this. I’ll add that if high costs and being on the hook for healthcare costs drove people to be less risky we would have a nation of health nuts instead of a bunch of obese slobs.

You can manage this with... wait for it... wait for it....

People don’t go to doctors and wait an hour for shits and giggles.

Yes, there will be moral hazard on the margins. For example, in Japan, it’s pretty much a trope for old people to see doctors just to have someone to talk to and the Japanese system hands out bags of IV fluids for no medical reasons like bottles of water.

But that stuff can be managed with pretty nominal copays and other forms of cost sharing.

This nails it perfectly. With car insurance the more of a risk you are such as tickets, accidents, DUI the more you pay.

Though here in Canada we have the same issues as other countries Obesity, opioid addiction that put strains on the system. Good luck at a doctor saying your kids are fat or your fat. Though it always baffled me that so many poor folks were obese till you realize it may be cheaper or easier to eat fast food

It is never cheaper to eat fast food, but it is undoubtedly easier. It might be a little difficult to find an unbiased "expert" to explain to us why so many poor people are fat. I have my own theories, but this isn't the place for them.

I agree that people are going to be way more likely to go to the doctor when it's free. Just ask anyone who works in an Emergency Room, where people on the dole use it like they would a walk-in clinic for things that have no business being treated in an ER because it's more convenient than making a regular appointment and doesn't cost them anything.

i can't speak for canada but food deserts are a major problem in the US. especially in urban areas. i lived in a not terrible area of a city and the closest grocery store i could get real food was 2 bus transfers away.

Food desert hypothesis rankles me to no end. It’s just not supported by data in most of the country. Studies after studies have shown income and education are far more determinative of people’s eating habits, at least in the major urban centers on the coasts.

As for rest of the country, I think we’re conflating public transport with food desert.

DO you guys think we Should we have certain clauses for people who smoke, et if we all adopt this healthcare policy though?

under a privatized system, if youre a smoker, youre obviously more "at risk" (wether you are or arent) an therefore proly going to be more difficult then someone who is " less at risk"

if its even playing field, is that fair to both parties? thats why I ask should clauses be discussed, even if logistically it might be a bit hard to iron out logistically

UHC at its very foundation isn't fair, and that's the entire point. Why nitpick over things like a smoking or McGriddle habit at that point?

There's nothing at all equitable about social welfare programs. The one "fair" thing socialized medicine has going is it at least provides everyone with the same shitty level of care. Whether you pay in zero or eleventy billion dollars, you get to wait 9 months for a colonoscopy just like the next guy. The price of progress, I guess.

2010 census had 24 million people living in food deserts, so i don't know how that tracks with "not supported by data".

but yeah. obviously income is important, its also how you end up in an area without the ability to get to a grocery store..

That is just a crock. I live in Alberta, Canada ( 0$ Premium health care)and after my physical my doctor determined at the age of 55 a colonoscopy was required. Not an urgent matter and it took 6 weeks.

Now what is backed up in the system is Hip Replacements and Knee replacement. You will wait a year for those as they are elective. There is no private option unless you leave the country.

If the Alberta System says a Knee Replacement is $10,000 and you have the money to get it done elsewhere out of the country you should be rebated 50%-75% and allowed to deduct the rest.

It doesn't track because the definition is problematic and data fairly conclusively show even residents in supposed food deserts buy most of their groceries from supermarkets. They have access to the allegedly healthy food; they just walk right past it. In practice, nobody really lacks access to healthy food because even if you live far (not even that far to satisfy food desert definitions), you probably work near a supermarket or pass one on the way to work.

See this:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food...or-study-finds

There is also a chicken/egg problem. Are the food deserts there as a cause of eating habits or are the eating habits of the area causing food deserts?

The waiting time thing is constantly pushed by people arguing against universal healthcare but it's just simply not true. There are some areas where the US is good, mostly around elective procedures/non-emergency treatment, but when it comes to emergency room waiting times and regular GP appointments the US is pretty average in comparison to countries with socialised healthcare. The reality is that there is no area where the US system is consistently better than other countries and many areas where it is consistently worse.

The US system is a bloated, massively inefficient, hugely inequitable system that provides worse healthcare outcomes than most other OECD countries.

thats just what conservatives say.. its like the death panels. quick easily told lies that people like inso can drive by on facebook/twitter/message boards and spread.


commonwealth fund did a survey in 2016:
for seeing a specialist
US- 25% waited more than a month
Canada-58%
UK-42%

elective surgery
US-94% were seen within 4 months
Canada-78% were seen within 4 months
UK-75% were seen within 4 months


so yeah, no one is arguing that public options will be faster for non-emergency. but the conservative fairy tales are obviously dumb

Given the inevitable nature of socialized medicine in the US, I hope you're both right and this doesn't become an "I told you so" situation.

The primary reason I think you're largely full of **** is due to the sheer scale of the US population. People who live in Bum****, NowhereUSA are probably used to limited availability of services so that's probably no big deal, but for everyone else, I hope you're ready to provide enough medical personnel to take care of the 900 million new doctor visits every year as everyone rolls up to the hospital whenever they have the sniffles. Again, talk to anybody who works in an urban ER about that one.

There are only so many doctors, and only so many hours in a day. Couple this with a massive pay cut, and I'm sure medical colleges will have to be beating prospective students back with a stick to keep order in the admissions office.

Oh, and once you open the floodgates to the illegals, too?

physicians assistants are already running almost all of the non-emergency centers near me. and to my knowledge level of care hasn't fallen.

it might not be a popular take, but maybe non specialized doctors deserve a bit of a pay cut. along with an even larger cut in the student loan amounts needed to pursue of course.

US is an outlier on the amount of education/residency experience/other training necessary to practice medicine.

This is ******ed on a myriad of levels.

they are being replaced by nurses and pa's that have the same level of care and are easier to work with.

what exactly are they doing to demonstrate the worth of 2-3 physician's assistants at this point in time?

aid yale to the list of institutions/organizations that performed studies and found what most people are already saying.

a single payer system would save an additional 68k lives and cost 450billion a year less than the current system.

Though hospitals would see the biggest change as they would not get away with what they are charging

Here in Canada Hospitals are not for profit. I just do not see how you have Universal Care without eliminating this