Single payer health care reform. Why Health Care is a Human Right.

http://prezi.com/vnkigmljhgy5/single-payer-health-care-reform/

Healthcare should be a basic right, NOT a privilege. Also, pre-existing condition clauses should be eliminated. I am so tired of people telling me that it is my fault that I have a brain tumor when I lead an active and healthy lifestyle. You know, those fruits and vegetables will get you!

In talking about single-payer universal health care, limits and standards must be considered. The money to pay for care has to come from somewhere. What level of care in the USA can be supported indefinitely?

Kind of the sad part of our current health care entitlement system, of Medicare, & Medicaid is that it is going broke and unaffordable. No cost savings measures have been put in place. Obamacare only makes matters worse. People have no incentive to shop around, making choices to keep prices lower or seek alternative treatments.

It is doubtful Obamacare will make it through the court system. And the current 3rd person payer system based largely on procedures is not all that great. Improvements need to be made.

Reading this morning, the President's latest budget proposal doesn't even look at entitlement reform. Without this our nation is heading toward bankruptcy - another Greece like situation.

"Obama's 2013 Budget: A Monument To Irresponsibility"

http://news.investors.com/Article/601049/201202131854/obama-budget-proposes-new-spending-spree.htm

Paying for healthcare is easy. Paying for Global military actions, wall street screw-ups, plus medical care might not be so easy.

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I tend to favor a single-payer system but do fear that it will lead to even higher costs and even more control by politicians.

My idea is sort of a hybrid deal. It is based on removing the overhead of medical care. That is the one thing we can limit.

1. The government would build efficient, modestly-size hospital buildings.

2. The government would finance the purchase of equipment.

3. Hospitals would be run by private, community or charitable groups, but only on a non-profit basis.

4. Record-keeping would be standardized and centralized to eliminate duplication of effort.

5. The medical education of doctors, nurses, etc would be government subsidized. This would also allow for more in the profession, reasonable working conditions and for people of modest means to get that training.

6. There would be cash incentives for money-saving procedures and for being efficient. In essence, people would be rewarded for saving money rather than in extracting it from others.

7. There would be continuing steady and large government scientific research effort. Much medical research would be subsidized.

8. The government would essentially buy out patents for drugs and devices. The developers in return would be given a life-time patent as long as they produced the product on a cost-plus or generic basis.

9. Private insurance companies would continue, but they would have to be non-profit and there would be limits on executive compensation. There would be cash rewards for inventive and efficient operation.

10. There needs to be a public discussion of end of life issues, a most expensive aspect of our medical care. In time this will lead to a more rational and vastly less costly way of dealing with this.

11. There would be some sort of centralized billing system so that half the employees in a hospital or doctor's office aren't in billing or collection.

12. Trickier, but necessary, is some sort of patient responsibility for their health. Being severely over-weight, using hard drugs, smoking, child abuse, etc all lead to huge medical expenses. Who wants to pay for Octomom's 3rd thru 8th children? How could you collect from a fat poor person? I don't know. That could be another discussion by itself.

Anyway, something like this might work.

I don't know you or care about you. Why are you making someone point a gun at my head to sacrifice for you? What of my needs, desires, hopes?

That is the real rub. It is psychopathic, irrational, and anti-social to take something as intimate as human charity and make it a "social," "nationalized" thing. Just like all State programs, it will only succeed in making matters worse. Reality can be a cruel mistress when she's scorned.

Although I can understand why people would say that health care is a right, but health care is administered by people. With that in mind, I don't think anyone has a right to other people and their time.

"How could you collect from a fat poor person" is passing strange funny. Is it really what you meant to write?

hmmmm.... a pound of flesh??

You only get rights from your Creator, any rights the state 'gives' you can be taken away, as punishment, as coercion, on a whim, or for any logical or illogical reason. Health care is no more a right than 3 meals a day or a Ruger SP101 .357 magnum is a right. If you want health care, 3 meals a day and/or a Ruger SP101 .357 magnum, you need to get off your YKW and earn them.

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The collecting from a poor fat person remark was meant to be in this context: Ideally, people would have to take some responsibility for their own health in any health-care system. A fat person who smokes, for example, would be a burden on the system out of choice and should be penalized. But, how could you do that?

I forgot to put in the suggestion that instead of unenforceable penalties, perhaps there could be rewards like some sort of tax rebate if you are taking reasonable care of yourself.

Of course, even that would be difficult to administer. How fat is fat? Is it back-up beeper fat? Those who really limit their recreational drug or tobacco use to infrequent social systems likely aren't hurting their health any, but what is the line here?

So, that part of my idea would likely crash and burn. Oh, well.

Bryant: what in the world are you saying?

Carlgo: The entire premise of the welfare state is psychopathic. I do not feel a close bond or kinship with the 300+ million strangers in this country: why am I expected to sacrifice for them, and they for me? Humanity was built on cooperation and not coercion. Charity is cooperative, welfare is coercive. Attaching a moral value to the coercion only creates cognitive dissonance; up is down, left is right to the welfare supporter. It is to deny reality.

It is not "charity" or "progressive" to force me to pay into a disintegrated welfare bureaucracy. It is barbarism.

If only people cared as much for their fellow man as they do their "creator".

The main problem I have with the current system is this. There should only be one group. That group is Human Beings. Our rates should reflect that we are all members of that group and we should all pay the same for health insurance. Someone is going to whine and say 'but I live a healthy lifestyle why should I have to pay for everyone who doesnt". Yes one guy doesnt eat twinkies but he might go skateboarding, or might stress out a lot at work, all proven to cause health problems. It all balances out. One group, One rate.

Secondly it needs to be completely decoupled from working. You should negotiate a WAGE i.e. MONEY with your employer. That amount of money should include enough money to pay for health insurance. The idea that you cannot get health insurance for yourself, but if you get a job you are suddenly eligible because you are now part of a 'group (yes back to the group concept again) is stupid.

I agree. Especially, insurance being decoupled from working. I think we just need to rename "welfare" to "insurance" and people will understand how it works.

People seem to have such a problem when "tax money" goes towards other people's well being, but when it's labeled "insurance" they don't have a problem. It's really the same thing. You have a group paying money into a pool (AKA Insurance provider), when someone from that group needs some of it (make an insurance claim), they take from the pool (insurance coverage). That way, no one person, in that group, feels the full hit of a disaster (shared risk), such as their home burning down. The only way something like this would work is if not everyone got back everything they put in, obviously. On top of that, not everyone even pays the same amount to their insurance provider (based on age, health, smoker, family size, etc).

The idea of social welfare, is the same thing. People in the group ("society") pay taxes (not all the same amount, just like insurance) and people get money back based on certain needs (also, not necessarily as much as they put in). Do some people rely too heavily on these social services? Sure. Do people rely too much on insurance? Definitely. I, for one, live a healthy lifestyle and RARELY go to the doctor... not even for checkups (not saying that's necessarily a good thing). Yet, the money I pay for insurance goes towards someone else's unnecessary doctor visits and excessive prescriptions (in some cases). But, that's just the way it works. It's no longer my money. Once you pay your insurance company, people don't think of that as "my money" anymore, do they? Why do they think that once the government gets their tax money that it's somehow still theirs? Why don't people label having an insurance claim as a "hand out"? Is it because you pay your insurance premium so you're entitled? Many people pay their taxes, then receive some kind of social benefit. How are they also not entitled to those benefits? Why is that suddenly a "hand out"?

Once people understand that some of our tax money behaves just like insurance (not all your tax money, obviously, since we have roads, schools, etc to pay for), then you get into what's morally right and to actually take care of our own people. I don't want a hand out (as I mentioned, I rarely go to the doctor), but if someone is living in pain or is at risk of dying from a treatable ailment, how can I think it's okay to think "too bad, you're poor, you die"? That's the way our system seems to work right now... and it's not right.

Totally agree with decoupling health insurance from employment. From an employer's perspective, my responsibilities should be a fair wage and safe working environment. If I'm a coffee shop owner, why am I now in the health care business too? This is a burden. I'd rather pay my employees more and put the responsibility on them to secure their own insurance, not unlike car insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance, or any other type of insurance NOT generally provided by an employer.

From an employee's perspective, health insurance should have nothing do with my job. I should not have to fear that if I lose my job, I also lose my health insurance, and that if I've managed to get sick since getting that job, in applying for my new policy, I now have to deal with having a pre-existing condition that they can either turn me down for, or simply price me out of being able to obtain.

Every other developed country in the world has figured out a system -- whether by single payer, by mandates, or otherwise -- to ensure access to health care for all of their citizens. The fact that we supposedly can't, or that we can't afford it (while affording a defense budget the dwarfs any other nation on earth), does not speak well of us as a nation. It showcases us as nation of selfish individuals who don't give a rip about their fellow citizens.

"Every other developed country in the world has figured out a system -- whether by single payer, by mandates, or otherwise -- to ensure access to health care for all of their citizens. The fact that we supposedly can't, or that we can't afford it (while affording a defense budget the dwarfs any other nation on earth), does not speak well of us as a nation. It showcases us as nation of selfish individuals who don't give a rip about their fellow citizens."

I completely agree. I don't understand why people don't understand that what people want isn't just "hand outs", but a fair system that cares about its people.

D. Christal: Insurance is a voluntary agreement. Comparing it to taxes, welfare is disingenuous.

I can name roughly 50 people I care enough about to sacrifice for. I do not care about 300+ million others, and I do not expect them to care for me.

This makes me a "non-human" in your utopian ideal, and that is what makes you the monster by comparison. You cannot conceive of the word "no," of disagreement to your plan.

Yours is an absolutist, totalitarian plan. You do your best to obfuscate this, to try and vaguely-appeal to subjective morality and ethics... But at the core is a visceral desire to hold a gun to my head, or to have someone else do the dirty work.

Van: True, insurance is voluntary. However, when healthcare costs can cost you a year's salary for a simple procedure, it becomes less and less voluntary. Especially, when some illnesses, such as cancer, means a death sentence because any healthcare would be out of reach for most uninsured people.

Do you think it's okay to not care about 300+ million others? Is it because you think they don't care about you? What about education? Do you care about the education of the 300+ million other people? Or only those 50 people?

I'm not trying to be vague at all. We live in a society, one where we contribute taxes to the government (which enacts what we decide to do as a group, admittedly badly sometimes), such as build roads, build schools, provide fire stations, public libraries, social services for the people, corporate services, and more. What we DON'T live in is "every man for themselves" where it's up to us to build our own roads, teach our own kids, etc. and sit on the porch of our personal fort with a shotgun telling people to get off our land. I'm merely saying that the health of our citizens is an important one, just like education, etc, and not one to simply ignore. Please don't twist the idea of a "society" with me wanting to hold a gun to your head. Does that not seem extreme to you?

Do you have a problem with money given to corporations? Perhaps in the form of a bailout, tax break, or subsidy? Do you see that as "charity"?

Are you religious?

Best would be a fair system that cares about all its people, that's also an efficient system unencumbered by private insurers that in effect deprive many of needed health care by raising costs.

"You only get rights from your Creator." While my comment is a bit off topic, this is a more complicated road than people think. What do you do when a group's creator gives rights that conflict with another group's rights? Who is right? Obviously, both groups think they are right, since their creator gave them those rights. Just look at the middle-east, Israel, and the different religious groups in that area who feel their creator gave them certain rights to that land, etc. They've been warring for centuries over it. Is that a good route for the US?

Within the borders of the US, we have many religions, people, and beliefs who often have ideas that are in conflict. What can you do? You can't just make the opposition disappear. You also can't become the Britain that the original settlers traveled to America to escape. The only option is to go the route that causes people the least pain and suffering.