US Healthcare reform

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I'm rather passionate about this subject and would love to know what others think, particularly those outside of the US. I believe a for-profit healthcare system is fundamentally flawed. It requires insurance companies to to put their bottom line first and drug companies to produce drugs that make the most profit such as Levitra and Latisse (perhaps the most rediculous drug ever conceived). There's no money to be made in curing people so why bother?

Meanwhile, we have 50 million uninsured and who knows how many underinsured people who have no access to quality care. They must go to the ER for treatment and their unpaid bills wrap right into the rising costs of healthcare. When did the US start becoming so obsessed with profit? I thought it was a good thing that not every system we had was out to make a buck. Why are the republicans so hung up on being anti-socialist? I rather enjoy having paved roads, public schools, and a police and fire department. Should we close our libraries and de-regulate utilites as well? Has the economic meltdown taught us nothing? Haven't we all seen, firsthand, what happens when core public service is allowed to profit at any expense?

Sorry, a bit of a rant there I know, but I'm very interested in an intelligent discussion from those with all opinions. Are other countries laughing at us?

I don't see a horrible problem with the healthcare system being private (we do have higher quality care than any other country, including the ones with socialized medicine- we just need to find a way to make it cheaper) and I don't see much evidence of there being a massive conspiracy within the pharmaceutical industry to screw people over for profits. I know a number of people working in research to develop new drugs, and their concern is genuinely to make people's lives better. Yes, they are primarily looking for treatments rather than cures, but that's only because it is faster, easier, and cheaper to find an effective treatment and more benefit can be had by looking for that first. Also, many health problems can not realistically be "cured," so the hope is to find effective treatments to improve a patient's quality of life.

Side note: Our roads are often a mess due to half-assed construction projects, our public school system sucks, our police are abusive, utilities are not always provided very effectively, and the public libraries I've been to all have had a laughably limited selection. Haven't we all seen, firsthand, what happens when a core service is trusted to the incompetent bumbling of government bureaucrats?

My biggest objection to public healthcare is the cost. We would have to go another $1 trillion in debt just to get it started.

Well, technically, the bottom line will always matter for a healthcare system. The major gain in having a government health care system is really cost control, because if the issue were just distribution, then we could just have a health care voucher-ish system to take care of that kind of an issue. As well, the US health care system makes most of the drugs worldwide, from what I recall about it, and if they are just making drugs that don't cure many people, there are 3 things I might see as responsible:
1) They are afraid that a governmental action or backlash will result of them profiting from something really beneficial
2) They consider FDA approval to cause too much uncertainty to put forward all of the effort.
3) They do not see any great breakthrough on the horizon to try to take advantage of.

Now, that's just guessing, but I would assume that pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be unusually stupid in their profit-making actions.

Also, generally, the 50 million amount is somewhat overstated, as a significant number of that group is non-citizens and people who could insurance if they wanted it, with a minority of that number actually being poor Americans. This site has a break down that is similar to that found from other websites. http://keithhennessey.com/2009/04/09/ho ... taxpayers/ And it shows that a minority of the 50 million are problmatic.

The US has always been somewhat driven by profit, as the size of government was very small for most of our history. In addition, republicans generally believe that socialism is a bad way to go, and this is based upon reasons that are normative, and reasons that they view as relating to how the world works.

In any case, out of the 4 examples that you gave, about 3 of those are generally considered issues of public goods, where rivalry and excludability would be very difficult.

The economic meltdown, you mean the recent one? The issue with that is partially a matter of interpretation, and partially a matter of analysis, however, I do not see how the meltdown claims that privatization is bad. I mean, part of the issue is sometimes blamed on governmental policies to promote housing loans to people who would not have received them otherwise, part of the issue is also blamed on psychological factors that inevitably emerge, and part of the issue is blamed on poor regulatory policy, but none of that says whether a specific privatization is a bad idea, particularly given that 2 out of the 3 claims have nothing to do with the private sector being horrible.

I don't see why other countries would laugh at us. Compared to them, we only have 2 problems, high cost of medical care as a percentage of GDP and higher inequality in medical care, but beyond that I think evidence is in favor of the US generally having better treatment, as can be seen in an adjusted life expectancy. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/11/bey ... rs-us.html

Now, of course, my arguments on the matter could be somewhat flawed, however, I don't think that this is as big of an issue either way as many people think it is. I would imagine that if the US had a public health care system, it would be, in some ways, like an HMO, as the government would try to control costs by squeezing money where they can, and this would lead to some of the same problems as an HMO as doctors would have less time for each person and coverage would be relatively limited to what government accountants and bureaucracy believed to provide the best returns, etc. Probably not utopic, however, likely not some bit of pure evil either.

i really have no problem with a government option, the more compatition the better, however. i do see a problem arising when everyone (employers) drop medical coverage because the government is in the business, forcing you to get on the governmet plan. now, i currently dont have health care but i could probably get it through medicaid. (because of my low income) and infact ive been on it in the past, but im not currently on it. so it would seem to make sence to me for poor people if they want insurance to get it there

At least our Senior Citizens enjoy the blessings of socialized medicine.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/ ... 3863a6c6f4

I'm pretty young and don't have nearly the experience with the healthcare system as a lot of you guys have to really talk intelligently about it on my own first hand but I've heard that cancer survival rates in countries with socialize medicine(such as the UK and France) is significantly lower than the US. As well as all the stuff about the lines and having to wait for basic tests.

Obamacare makes me nervous the way they're trying to rush it through. Most of our representatives that will be voting on this haven't even read the bill. All I want is for them to take their time and get it right.

I do think it's probably common sense that if there was a subsidized government run healthcare option that's cheaper that it would knock out private insurance eventually. Why wouldn't the employer choose it? How could they compete?

edit: I see that the cancer thing has been brought up already.