2d ago

Fixable

54 comments

Healthcare cannot be free as long as there are humans in the loop. Either you pay for yourself or you pay for everyone.
If you want your labor to be paid for, then you have to pay for the labor of others. Doctors, nurses, medical office assistants, etc., all put in significant hours of work. And many of them are in massive educational debt. And there's no way we can guarantee that the government will allocate the money they take from us in the way we wish.
Other problems can be solved, yes. As an example, there are homeless people, and there are abandoned homes across the country. The sooner we bring the two groups together, the sooner we'll see improvement.
But we can't expect construction or contracting companies to do the necessary labor for free, either. The money will have to come from somewhere - and governments have repeatedly shown that they're not equipped for the task. Either you pay for yourself or you pay for everyone. My experience says that I don't have the money to pay for everyone who won't be able to pay me back. So I'll pay for the things I need and use, and let everyone else do the same.
- Libertarian brain rot.
  You are being willfully ignorant. Governments collect taxes to pay for those things. Taxes can be targeted towards those who can afford to pay.
  Problems can be solved, you just don't want to because you think it will leave you with less than you have. You are a scaredy-cat, afraid to try and improve the system because you are selfish. Ironically fixing the system would improve your life too.
  TLDR Fuck you, pay your taxes.
- Cool, I choose pay for everyone because of the people who won't be able to pay me back.
  
  That's entirely your right. I wholeheartedly encourage you to do what you feel is best for yourself and continue your charitable work. Don't force me to do so because you believe in it.
  
  You're already paying for everyone else to have healthcare you're just doing it in the dumbest, most inefficient way possible. Hospitals cannot turn away patients who need lifesaving care. Guess what happens when someone without insurance ignores a fixable problem until it can't be ignored any longer? They get treatment and you pay for it in the form of higher costs and insurance premiums.
  
  Alternative : we kill you for being anti-social. Get fucked.
  
  You may attempt to do so,
- Either you pay for yourself or you pay for everyone.
  Yes. That's called a single payer healthcare system. The government, who gets its money from taxes.
- WhO's GoNnA pAy FoR aLl ThIs StUfF?
  
  iF We make ThE biLLIOnaIRES Pay taXes, theY’ll leAvE the CoUnTRy!
- My experience says that I don’t have the money to pay for everyone who won’t be able to pay me back. So I’ll pay for the things I need and use, and let everyone else do the same.
  You quite literally pay for everyone when you pay private health insurance anyway. The math works out that either you are unfortunate enough to need care and everyone else pays for you, or you don't need extensive care and you pay for people that need it more. This is the same for privately funded or publicly funded healthcare.
  The difference is that under the private healthcare system you also pay a whole bunch of salesmen, managers, investors, and executives, who can choose to delay or deny your care based on their ~~professional medical opinion~~ parasitic whim. Oh, and you also pay into all the super PACs and marketing agencies that reinforce the myth that the system is currently working for anyone.
- Rather than directly pissing on your post, I just have two questions (that I don't necessarily expect you to reply to):
  Would you be okay with people who can't pay you back benefiting if it cost you less overall?
  How does this compare to other systems you do consider the government competent enough to manage?
  
  There would have to be hard and fast proof that those who pay in would see a significant benefit. I'm not opposed to voluntary charity - so long as the doctor has the final say in how they get paid and the rate they set for their labor. I have donated to Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross/Red 'Crystal', and some of the groups who've helped out in stopping the spread of malaria and ebola. I chose the groups to whom I gave that money when I had it to give, and the amount which I felt I was willing or able to give. That's the fundamental difference between charity and taxation. I've also given to the American Bald Eagle Foundation, Save the Manatee Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. I chose to do those things. It was not taken by force.
  There is no such system. The government is, and generally always has been (so long as there's been a thing called 'the government'), made up of warmongering narcissistic lunkheads whose priorities are disconnected from any form of common reality. I will support focused, local, voluntary charity over mandatory taxation and government waste for any community task you might imagine. I even find my City Council to be horribly out of step with the common people where I live. Maybe my ward council would be reasonable, if it weren't for the fact that they're a bucket of political crabs trying to create careers of taking money from the public coffers. I wouldn't consider our current pack of political figures (top to bottom, globally) fit to manage a McDonald's, let alone a complex system accountable to the public.
- So I'll pay for the things I need and use, and let everyone else do the same.
  I'll ask a question: How much of your premium do you think goes towards profits, insurance-related bureaucracy (both on the company and hospital side) and other non-care insurance items? Hint: More than a quarter of a hospital's employees are only there to handle insurance. Hint2: Some doctors—particularly in the field of mental health—find the whole thing so ridiculous that they straight up do not accept insurance.
  
  I'm sadly aware of how ridiculous the insurance situation is. In our current legal (and legislative) environment, the fact that we don't have firm tort limits is problematic. It means that doctors who might be accused of malpractice either will do so flagrantly, or refuse to act without massive barriers (provided, of course, by the insurance companies). There are a lot of things that need to change to upset it and I think any of them would be valuable.
  Reduce the public financial aid availability - schools will lower their tuition costs and fees eventually, or they'll find themselves with far less students. That way, doctors & lawyers don't end up saddled with a lifetime's worth of education debt (and side benefit - neither does anybody else).
  Instate firm lifetime tort limits, so that a doctor (who's already saddled with debt) doesn't have to fear for his career with every patient. That will sharply lower insurance loss rates and payouts, which should impact premiums. Less fear for doctors, less work for lawyers, less work for actuaries.
  Those two broad changes alone would fix a lot of issues.
  If you do need some form of public insurance, don't insure the patients. Everyone is a patient, supporting them might not pay back. Instead, set up a government funded malpractice insurance fund for all medical (dental/psych/etc) doctors. That encourages more people to become doctors, sets a de facto limit on the insurance plan and premium, and supports the skilled and educated people we actually want.
  
  There are a lot of things that need to change to upset it and I think any of them would be valuable.
  You're missing the point. Insurance adds fat that—even setting aside the economies of scale and negotiating power inherent in a government-funded system—overshadows the amount of money you'd save by forcing poor people to go without care, to say nothing of the knock-on effects of doing so (preventive care costs less than emergency care). All your talk of torts and malpractice overlooks the inherent problem of for-profit insurance being a pointless middleman that only makes money by denying people care. There are third world countries with better healthcare access than America because of this nonsense. I'd know; I live in one of them. Americans can sustain this system because they're filthy rich, but it's inherently wasteful and in a poorer country people would already be rioting.
  Reduce the public financial aid availability - schools will lower their tuition costs and fees eventually, or they'll find themselves with far less students.
  Then even fewer students will be able to go to university. It's basic supply and demand.
  
  If I understand your position, it sounds like you're hoping that the impacts of reduced benefits will somehow trickle down to the people who are currently most affected
- Gonna send you my next medical bill. Oh wait! I already do! It's your W-2
- We aren't expecting any companies to do anything for free. We aren't looking to preserve the existence of companies as they are part of why we have these problems.
  
  Then how do you face the issue that all doctors are functionally companies? And certainly that all doctors' offices are?

54 comments