Health Care for everyone in the United States

[mpjh]

New Poll on Health Care:

As an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed in 2003, the majority of Americans support a single-payer, government-sponsored health care system, even when they hear the right-wing's alarmist arguments.

Here are the key findings:

- Question 48 in the poll shows that 79% of Americans say they support "providing health care coverage for all Americans, even if it means raising taxes" over "holding down taxes, even if it means some Americans do not have health care coverage."

- Question 49 shows 62% say they support a universal health care system "run by the government and financed by taxpayers" over the current system.

- Question 50 shows 57% say they would support this program even "if it limited your own choice of doctors" (which doesn't necessarily have to be a side-effect of a single-payer system).

- Similarly, question 51 shows 62% say they would support this program even "if it meant there were waiting lists for some non-emergency treatments" (again, not necessarily a side-effect).

Wow, I never knew. What do you think?

[Draconian_Intel]

Just out of curiosity, is that supposed to say a poll "in 2008" showed that?

[mpjh]

No, I think 2003 is correct for this poll. Do you have a more recent one?

[Draconian_Intel]

No, you just said before it "New Poll on Health Care:", but if it's from 2003, it's not very new, so I thought it might have been a typo.

As far as the topic is concerned, I think it would be nice if everyone would be able to get health care in an affordable manner, but I don't think that it would be feasible. Even if it could be worked out, I'm not sure that everyone would be willing to take the actions necessary to put it into place.

[mpjh]

Well it is new to me.

Yet another poll demonstrates that a majority of Americans support universal coverage under a single-payer system. A poll conducted during the week of December 14-20, 2007 by the Associated Press and Yahoo found that 65 percent of Americans support extending Medicare to everyone, and that 54 percent are willing to identify themselves as single-payer supporters.

Does this help?

[Napoleon Ier]

Ah! A majority of Americans support this, do they? Well... the majority of Americans being such bellwether of sensible political course, I can't see why we wouldn't go right ahead and implement such a scheme. After all, it's going swimmingly in Europe!

[mpjh]

Doing well in Canada also.

[got tonkaed]

you dare suggest that the average US citizen is not the beacon of politican participation and common sense?

Really if someone figured out a reasonable solution to healthcare that didnt involve massive amounts of debt needing to be serviced to our GDP annunaly and insured a sizeable amount of the tens of millions who go without id take it. Public, private or any mix between.

Id be willing to be this one has a few tricky issues to in terms of questioning. If i ask a person whether or not people should have access to healthcare they will probably answer to yes. But if i ask them if they should be required to have healthcare if they dont want it they will probably say no. When you try to practically plot out healthcare solutions you run into all kinds of problems seemingly.

Also as an aside, I clarified my post on the England issue Napoleon.

[Napoleon Ier]

Cheers

[mpjh]

you dare suggest that the average US citizen is not the beacon of politican participation and common sense?

Really if someone figured out a reasonable solution to healthcare that didnt involve massive amounts of debt needing to be serviced to our GDP annunaly and insured a sizeable amount of the tens of millions who go without id take it. Public, private or any mix between.

Id be willing to be this one has a few tricky issues to in terms of questioning. If i ask a person whether or not people should have access to healthcare they will probably answer to yes. But if i ask them if they should be required to have healthcare if they dont want it they will probably say no. When you try to practically plot out healthcare solutions you run into all kinds of problems seemingly.

Also as an aside, I clarified my post on the England issue Napoleon.

Actually, there is no mystery here. Single-payer is well established in several western countries. It obviously can be done, and people seem to want it done here.

Single-payer/Medicare For All would cover all Americans regardless of income, employment, residence, age, or prior medical condition, while allowing choice of health care provider. In 2003, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article estimating that Single-Payer could cut health care costs by $350 billion annually (http://www.pnhp.org/publications/nejmadmin.pdf).

[luns101]

I am against a single-payer system. Countries which have implemented centralized single-payer health care systems are moving away from that. Michael Tanner did an excellent job of documenting this earlier in 2008.

The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look At National Health Care Systems Around the World

If you would like a verbal summary along with a Question & Answer session follow-up instead of reading through it then click here

John Stossel also did an excellent job of summarizing why it's not practical on 20/20 some time ago on a piece titled Sick in America.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

[mpjh]

Well it seems that the Journal found at least one argument that eliminating the middle man (the insurance companies) saves money. That is good enough for me. Besides my elderly friends are real happy with Medicare.

[Nobunaga]

... There are laws in the US which ban citizens of one state from seeking insurance with companies registered in another state. This is a huge problem and, if changed, would give millions access to insurance they cannot now afford. Basic coverage in the state of New York, for example, cost three times what it cost in Wisconsin, just to cite an example.

... Fixing this is not the only solution, but a step in the right direction.

...

[golilox]

I can't see how anyone would not want it, In new zealand we have public heathcare and I would hate to think what it would have been like growing up without it.

On my first trip to America I had the worst experience of a hospital in the my life! I had accidentally drunken kerosene a few weeks prior to arriving in the US and was having problems with the side effects which arose out of it so went to an emergency clinic. Some three to four hours and a few blood tests later they sent me on my way without any help as they just thought I was on drugs and suicidal. I had insurance but still had to fork out a crazy $1500US on the spot and then when I got home two months down the track they send another $600 bill for something I don't care to remember. To make matters worse my insurance wouldn't even pay for it in the end. I'm still seething about the whole situation (can you tell)!

For a horrible experience like the one above in my country would at the very most cost me about $100NZ (around $60US).

Our doctors bills (GP's) have also recently been capped at around $25NZ per session. How can you not want that!

[Napoleon Ier]

Because you more than re-cuperate the loss in higher salaries.

[brooksieb]

Well you will have to pay for people to go under lypo suction to remove there many layers of fat, or even allow people to have sex changes, OUT OF YOUR' OWN MONEY! Think about it, maybe it might not happen in America if it goes ahead but it certainly happens in the UK under the NHS.

[Timminz]

Well you will have to pay for people to go under lypo suction to remove there many layers of fat, or even allow people to have sex changes, OUT OF YOUR' OWN MONEY! Think about it, maybe it might not happen in America if it goes ahead but it certainly happens in the UK under the NHS.

The british system cover elective stuff?! That's ludicrous!

[Napoleon Ier]

Well you will have to pay for people to go under lypo suction to remove there many layers of fat, or even allow people to have sex changes, OUT OF YOUR' OWN MONEY! Think about it, maybe it might not happen in America if it goes ahead but it certainly happens in the UK under the NHS.

The british system cover elective stuff?! That's ludicrous!

Oh no... there's "stringent" rules that dictate it's only stuff they'll give to you if it's psychologically "necessary".

Actually, I once heard a brilliant anecdote from a doctor friend of mine in the NHS about a patient who had her heating system and her rent payed for her by the NHS, under pretext that she had too many children one of which had eczema, and hence needed three bathrooms and air-conditioning at the taxpayer's expense.

[mpjh]

Well you will have to pay for people to go under lypo suction to remove there many layers of fat, or even allow people to have sex changes, OUT OF YOUR' OWN MONEY! Think about it, maybe it might not happen in America if it goes ahead but it certainly happens in the UK under the NHS.

I think we would follow the Canadian model which is more rational that the Brtish.

[Backglass]

I had accidentally drunken kerosene a few weeks prior to arriving in the US

OK. I MUST know more about this story.

How does one accidentally drink kerosene?!

[mpjh]

Actually, kerosene once was considered medicinal and people took it by the spoonful like cough syrup.

[Timminz]

Actually, kerosene once was considered medicinal and people took it by the spoonful like cough syrup.

OK, but I doubt that that would be called "accidental".

[mpjh]

One lies.

[Snorri1234]

After all, it's going swimmingly in Europe!

Indeed! Good to see you are finally seeing the truth nappy.

[Napoleon Ier]

After all, it's going swimmingly in Europe!

Indeed! Good to see you are finally seeing the truth nappy.

Checked out your national debt clock lately?