Dennis Kucinich steals the show at pres. debate

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWupJvXSegU[/youtube]

Kucinich is the one democratic candidate who actually deserves to be our next president.

I agree 100% with you Alex, Kucinich is a political genius. Now if only Americans would pick a candidate by substance and not style...

The only one of his policies I can think of that I really don't like is his leniency on illegal immigrants.

I am not a fan of Kucinich and would not want him elected and he is probably the candidate I like least. Then again, I am completely against him on economic issues including this one. Just a personal opinion though.

I agree completely with his speech on healthcare.

He's a very nice man.

I disagree with Kucinich on many issues, but he seems relatively sensible and genuine to me, and I have much more respect for him than for most of the other candidates. He would not be my first choice (that's Ron Paul) but I would be willing to tolerate a Kucinich presidency. If it's Hillary or Romney I'll think I'll just move to Canada.

He's anti-gun, pro-illegal immigration. What's to like?

Then what do you propose we do about healthcare?

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=oUV2QTXIW1U

Reduce governmental intervention more and more into all of the systems, such as by removing the tax cut for work related insurance and all of the other measures by government to subsidize all expenditures under the current system, reduce the ability of doctors to control the supply of doctors, and reduce the current regulations that lead to deadweight loss. Basically, privatize it more and more to help clean it out, and the reason I suggest this is because I think that the other route to take will end up in reductions in quality, disruption of current markets in healthcare in an unfortunate manner that will be mishandled, and that really this new system will just be set up to disappoint because our current system is not the horrible monstrosity that some think it is but rather it is a system that has some screw ups. I mean, a lot of the bad ratings it gets is because it is unequal rather than it being low quality. The chart here actually shows the US system as relatively high quality for our social factors despite our lower life expectancy.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/11/ ... html#links

Really, I think that a large amount of the issue with health care is really a matter of distribution and even if that is what we seek to address, I would still prefer to go a more market-driven method because of the relationship between prices and information in such a system. I dunno, I guess I also have difficulty seeing health care as a right because health care inevitably has limits due to the resources required and the fact that gains in health care are probably more properly looked at as marginal gains in longevity or risk reduction rather than life or death because everybody has to die some time, the question is really whether you get the additional 5 years, extra 8% chance of living, etc.

The fundamental problem is that individuals that are sick or lose their jobs either pay extremely large amounts of money for health insurance, or they can't get it at all. Free market solutions will not fix the problem - insurance companies are already free to deny coverage, and they do so.

I agree that we can't do everything for every one. Even with the best insurance, people recognize that some conditions can't really be treated, or some treatments aren't really worth pursuing. But a reasonable standard of care for all is a good ideal.

I think that everyone should have a right to medical treatment no matter what the cost, but I would advocate a proportionally small fee to help contribute to the overall costs of many treatments.

Yes, and that is a matter of risk. This also really goes back to what we define as the problem. You have to recognize that I don't see a problem but rather as suboptimal performance. Really, I don't see that as the major issue involved though. I see the fact that insurance is tied to jobbedness to be a problem, but I want to fix that by eliminating how insurance from an employer does not impact taxes while insurance one buys for oneself is treated differently.

Yes, and given that our standardized life expectancy mean was the highest in that little chart I posted from the blog of a Harvard economist, it seems that Americans on average get the best care.

The major issue then ends up being how we extend this to new, risky treatments where the number offered is limited and of course various grades and types of medical treatment. To be honest, I don't see why this should necessarily be the law. I mean, I think that medical care should be viewed as a product and hopefully, eventually, a product with variation based upon the needs and desires of its consumers. Really, not all medical treatments seem to create a lot of benefit, and either we have to have some government bureaucracy decide who gets treated how as a cost control or we have individual choice and frankly, I would prefer individual choice to be our cost control.

I would read that chart differently - the differences between the nations listed are so small that they are not significant - ie, the US has the same basic lifespan as Switzerland, Iceland and Canada. And yet the US spends 40-50% more on health than the other advanced nations. We may have hit a situation of declining marginal returns, or we may be spending so much because private insurance companies provide only ~60 cents of medical service for every dollar they are paid.

We could save money, provide more equitable coverage, and remain among the longest lived if we shifted to a system similar to what is present in Iceland or Switzerland. The money that was saved could be put towards programs to deal with things that make our actual lifespan lower than the theoretical standardized life span (ie, accidents, violent crime). That might be a more rational use of scarce resources.