You should care about why they want to talk about it.

The idea that society can't spend infinite amount of time and money to prolong every human life with no regard to whether or not it exacerbates suffering is so obvious that it's really insulting to act as if any person advocating for more public health care takes that position. On the other hand I think pretty fair to say that the real position of many on the right, especially the donors and leadership, is that absolutely no public money should be spent on health care. I think it's fair to treat Awval's post as part of the right's strategy as opposed to a trivial statement of the obvious fact that there aren't infinite resources.

I agree but too many doctors and surgeons etc in our money-obsessed societies wouldn't choose the same career if they weren't attracted by the lure of big salaries.

If people aren't willing to pay more tax for a better healthcare system I don't see a way to realise your stated aim without imposition of a socialist system where profits are replaced as the holy grail of careers by emotional or intellectual reward.

This is certainly a problem. I can't even really describe how my dad's end of life went, but I will say the impact on my mom is that she is extremely adamant about heroic efforts not being made if she's incapable of making her wishes known.

But the US pays more and has worse care than many countries. I don't think doctor salaries is the biggest part of that. More like insurance and drug companies.

Yep. The idea that right now, May of 2017, right-leaning health care thinkers have made breaking news by learning that scarce resources are not infinite and it's time to deeply ponder the consequences of that discovery...

Nope? How about no. That has no relevance to any proposal by any political group in any nation.

The debate is and has been, for decades, "should public money be used to provide care to those who can't afford it, and if so, where should that money come from."

catching up from overnight, just wanna say OMFG WOULD YOU IDIOTS STFU ABOUT SPEAKING FEES JFC

Totally agree with all your points.

Also, awval is arguing from the side of the political spectrum that is vehemently against death with dignity. Like, come on.

The idea that physician income levels would go down uniformly under single payer is a complete myth.

it is wrong. they are constructing a hypothetical that has little basis in reality. and, as fly said, they are doing so that they can cause misdirection so that the actual issues are not discussed.

It's part of this bizarre fiction that American style market health care is the only model that's ever been tried.

A public option does not negate the existence or high payment of private doctors. They may get paid less than in America but doctors in America get paid more there than anywhere else in the world.

Some people who have non life-threatening injuries would prefer not to wait for months and use private insurance to reimburse them for something now. When I lived in Spain, you had to go to the health center in your zip code to use public health care. Given the varying quality of doctors, care, and facilities throughout Spain, some people might to pay extra to choose their doctors and get better care than what they're forced to have due to where they live.

The other Western models are much better imo, but let's not fool ourselves that they too don't have terrible budgetary/financing problems which result in poor levels of health care during recessions.

Wookie help! These idiots are tarding up the place. Take it to the bedroom fellas.

Which is why it's a bigger problem than just how to organise health care. Sure you can improve things significantly by introducing <<GASP>> "socialised medicine" but in a country that abhors paying income tax you'll quickly find that a large chunk of that is swallowed up by an ever-increasing number of people who (reasonably) expect very expensive end of life treatments and care, leaving less for routine operations that frequently have to be postponed.

I think there would be a huge, though hard to measure, benefit for people who don't use a lot of health care now just to not have to worry about it. To be able to get routine minor care and not worry that if you need gallstones removed you'll be bankrupted and that if your kid gets in an accident they will get surgery if they need it instead of just treated at the ER and left to limp the rest of their lives - and to not have that be a big part of any decision to change jobs or start a new business, take a chance in not kissing someone's ass or w/e.

The problem is that all the profit that the current health care system has made a lot of people wealthy and powerful and they want to protect that wealth and power. And they also make a lot of convincing arguments to ignorant people to make them think that the current system is better than the alternative ("We have the greatest health care system in the world!" "Single payer healthcare means rationing!" "Death panels!" "Socialism!").

What is up with you guys and this end of life gibberish. You now just piled on by claiming people would actively be pursuing as much all you can eat healthcare as possible when on their death bed. This is a) ludicrous. b) already being done.

I am fearful for the future of healthcare if a forum populated by liberals and fake liberals actually think the United States does not legitimately have the resources to pay for people to stay alive.

There are massive places where we can improve the efficiency and cost of our healthcare and NONE of them have to do with letting people die. I have no idea where you guys got these ideas but you are literally preaching the Freedom Caucus' wet dreams.

Yeah in the scope of cost reform physicians compensation is way way way down the list.

Insurance companies create a massive inefficiency that drive most costs up across the board. Its not a huge percentage but it literally impacts the costs for everything. Drugs, as you noted are also a big one. As are hospitals and the entire medical device industry.

Addressing those four areas in a meaningful way would have a huge impact on healthcare costs in the US.

As someone who gets his kicks by searching for logic flaws in posts, it is very distressing that there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong along those lines with any of the twenty or so posts above me. Guess I am going to have to start going to Cardplayer's site.

But there really isn't. People are not giving ANY actual examples of real cases that we can not afford. Instead it's hypothetical bogeymen how in an abstract way. Like some day extending someone's life a day would require building a nuclear reactor. It's important we stick to real examples and real circumstances.

People act like science and medicine just sits around developing billion dollar single use fixes for things yet there is zero evidence that is true. Any expensive treatments almost always have been developed as part of advancing medicine which potentially makes it affordable and life saving for thousands in the future.

So perhaps people need to recategorize these things as research and development.

Sorry to interrupt this deathcare discussion, but a 2nd Trump son seems to have commented on their dad's denied Russian business ties as recently as 2014. Apparently, Russia likes golf. A lot.

http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/0...ald-trump-golf

You can read what you want but if you think graft is coming in the form of a 400k speech to Wall Street instead of a much easier disguised and much more lucrative book deal then lol.

Both are extremely high payments for their particular tasks. However one is much more of an outlier than another and much harder to track.

Yet former presidents you like shouldn't give speeches because you think it sends the wrong message. There was a lot more there in terms of why it could be a good thing but your choice of ignorance rests on you.